
The Political Retrospect 



ATSID OUR 



RESOLVE AND DUTY. 



SPEECH 



/ 



CHARLES A. SUMNER, 



OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



Delivered before the Jeffersonian Clubs of El Do- 
rado County, California, at Plaoerville, 
California, April 4th, 1877. 



Published by Request of the Hearers. 



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eOlJilOKrOBPRINTOSj 



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Political Retrospect and Outlook. 

OEGANIZATION AN I) DUTY. 



The President of the Jeffersoniau Club, Hon. G. J. Carpenter, Speaker of the Assem- 
bly, introduced Charles A. Sumner, of San Francisco. 

Mr. Sumner said : 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentle- B. Hayes, characterised the action of the 
MEN, Fellow Citizens :— If, on the 7th of Democratic representatives hefore the people 
November, 1876, the electors on the Radical duriug that exciting period. Nor is there any 
tickets had received a clear majority of the proper deduction from the credit for chival- 
ballota actually cast in a sufficient number of rous abstinence on this subject on the part of 
States to give their Presidential candidate a the popular advocates for the Democracy — 
preponderance iu the Electoral College vote, wherein a loyal mind for submission to a 
even though he lacked a million votes of a justly ascertained majority may be recog- 
popular majority, the acquiescence of the nized— because we all felt that, in a sense more 
Democratic party in his election would have profound than ever before experienced, we 
been perfect and complete. If, in addition to were contending against an organization, 
such sufficient, constitutionally-decreed re- without special reference to any one opposing 
suit, the Radical candidate for the office of aspirant for office ; because it is true we did 
Chief Executive had received a majority over not believe that the personal qualities and per- 
all competitors of 160,000 votes, a plurality of sonal disposition and habits and intentions, 
250,0(10 ballots, and a million majority of the all combined, of the Radical nominee for the 



white suffrages of the nation, any Democrat 
or any person claiming to be a Democrat 
■who would have publicly questioned the de 
cisi veness of the victory for tlie opposite party 
would have been the object of almost uiiiver 



Presidency had much to do in a discriminat- 
ing consideration of the profit and loss to the 
nation in the failure or success of the struggle. 
We felt, it is true, that we were battling, not 
so much against a man who had been named 



sal ridicule and contempt. The testimony of for the Presidency at the Cinciunati Conven- 

the political events of this country during the tion, as agaiust the continued domination in 

past eight years is conclusive on this assur- nationalaffairsof a cabal of infamous wretches, 

ance; and the language and conduct of the who, after fighting successfully against each 

Democratic party during the recent campaign other's Presidential aspirations, conspired to 

is overwhelming iu confirmation of this state- put a neutral creature at the head of their 

ment. party ticket. ludependent of outside or fring- 

Among the engraved results of our Eepuh- ing reasons that might have justified our not- 

lic's history, on which introductory and elo- able care in refraining from reviews of what- 

quent and patriotic congratul ition was placed ever was or couhl be called the political rec- 

in the Democratic platform, adopted at St. ord of Rutherford B. Hayes— and one-tenth 

Louis, stands the proclamation— Acquiescence of the man we admitted him to be would have 

in the will of the majority. Alas ! the records rejected the tender he has accepted at Wash- 

of our Republic no louger give uninterrupted ington with unutterable scorn— the principal, 

emphasis to so fundamental and comfortable the controlling, the oft-assigned sentiment 

a doutrine. *iiid purpose was this: We will exhibit our 

All the time during the campaign of the faith and our sincerity iu behalf of our plat- 
centennial year, everywhere, with excep- form by directly and exclusively contending 



tions so infrequent as to be made subjects of 
prominent comment more on that account 
than for any other reason, the Presidential 
candidate of' the Radical managers was treated 



for the election of the man who perfectly rep- 
resents its resolutious in his biography and 
his letters. 

But the simple and constitutional terms 



by the Democratic speakers and newspapers upon which the Democratic party of the na- 

with great respect. The claim for the excel- tion would have been practically a unit in ac- 

lence'of his personal character stoutly set knowleding its defeat, have not been fullilled; 

forth by his next of friends in political expec- and no efforts of ingenious contemporaneous 

tation, were speedily accepted and recited by writers can fasten the shadow of a possibility 

nearly every Democratic orator and journal- of truthfulness in such a claim upon tlie ac- 

ist, without public qualification, if not with- cepted and enduring page of history. All the 

out private dispute or misgivimjs; and in nu- conditions which I have supposed— m the case 

merous instances, it can now be said, legiti- where lunacy alone would have excused a 

mate opportunities to criticise his obscure and member of our organization iu a rebeUious 

msi"'nificant public record were charitably demou.stration against the elected right of the 

ignored or unimproved. It is proper to de- Chief Mairisirate -belong to a different pic- 

clare, that a forbearance which amounted to tnre, and lend the gravest signiticaiice and the 

magnanimous courtesy towards Rutherford most imposing and imperative obligations in 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



an opposite direction. Not Rutherford B. 
Hayes, not William A. Wlieeler, but the Ciin- 
didates upon tlie Democraiic ticket, were 
electeil Presideut and Vice Piesident of the 
United States on the 7th of November last. 
It was for tlie latter, and not for the former, 
that the indisputable tally shows a popular 
majority over all riviils of IfiO. 000 votes, and 
250,000" pUnalily; and in a million majority 
the wiiite voters of the country declared their 
preference and choice for President to be, not 
Rutherford B. Haves, of Ohio, but Samuel J. 
Tilden, of New York. 

From the outset of the campaign, it was 
manifest that the determination of the Demo- 
cratic party was to obtain success by the use 
of all f.iir and legitimate means; liaving, as 
it did, for its leaders and counsellors many 
men who are conceded to be among the wisest 
and best that have ever dignitied public lite 
in this nation or adorned an honorable profes- 
sion: — Charles Francis Adams, of Massachu- 
setts, andGideonWelles, of Connecticut; Park 
Godwin and John Bigelow, of New York ; 
Andrew Curtin, of Pennsylvania ; Montgom- 
ery Blair, of Maryland ; Lyman Trumbull 
and Joseph E. Palmer, of Illinois; George VV. 
Julian, of Lidiana; Austin Blair, of Michiiran; 
B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri ; John R Doo- 
little, of Wisconsin; Cassius M. Cliiy, of Ken- 
tucky ; — all old-line Republicans ; as pairi'>t8 
and statesmen, tried and true, and peerless in 
their respective commonwealths ; these men 
being among the most intiuential in advising 
the nominations, suggesting the methods of 
the canvass, and contributing towards its 
progress and ultimate success. 

From the outset of the campaign, it whs 
evident to every intelligent and candid ob- 
server that the managers of the Radical or- 
ganization were determined to place their 
candidate in the Presidential chair, if means 
the most corrupt and artifices the most detest- 
able could suffice to accomplish that end; that 
party having, as it did, for its leaders some of 
the worst men that have ever disgraced high 
official station — men who at one time or an- 
other have been stamped as political rene- 
gades and scoundrels by every journalist in 
the land who has won any claim to respect 
for theworthiness of his opinions : — such men 
as Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, and Zach. 
Chandler, of Michigan ; Ben. Butler, of Mas- 
sachusetts ; Jim Blaine and Eugene Hale, of 
Maine ; Simon Cameron and his son " Don," 
of Pennsylvania ; J. G. Gartield, of Ohio ; 
D. H. Chamberlain, of South Carolina ; M. 
L. Stearns, of Florida ; Madison Wells, of 
Louisiana : — and having for its candidate for 
Vice-Piesident one of the most servile and 
ready of railroadsubaidy representatives, and 
havingfor its principal outside " backers" the 
Princes of the railroad and whiskey rings, 
with Tom Scott and Jay Gould at their head 
— men whose preferences were known and 
satisfied at Cincinnati, and whose labor and 
expenditures at the close of the contest were 
all-powerful in seeming the consummation of 
the unparalleled and tremendous Conspiracy 
of usurpation. 

Fellow citizens : we did not contend for the 
salve of the temporary exultation of a party 
triumph, but for a lasting victory in behalf of 
great coubtitutional principles of free govern- 
ment. And there is nothing— I say it boldly, 
and 1 think I can place the record iu such a 
manner that no one will deny the glorious re- 
flection with any grace of accei t — there is 
nothing iu our canvass as a party for the man 



who was elected President of the United 
States that calls upon us for anything ap- 
proaching moral apidogy or explanation. Mis- 
takes on our side there were. Let them be 
avoided in the future. Inexpedient methods, 
acts of indiscreet local insubordination ag;iinst 
careful directions from headquarters, and slug- 
gish movements, are to be complained of, for 
ourselves and by ourselves ; but our hands 
were clean in the combat. And we can come 
here tonight, and go elsewhere fo morrow, 
and look each other in the face, and clasp each 
other by the hand, with a view to again renew 
the work of organization and the service of 
political soldiery, without studying to hide a 
recent political biography, but with every 
noble aiui generous fraternal impulse spring- 
ing therefrom. 

My friends: every man, everywhere, ac- 
cording to the prevailing belief of the civilized 
world, needs his own and his neighbors' 
prayers as he goes in and out to his daily da- 
ties. But if with our linite vision we can at 
any time discover any clear distinction be- 
tween the good and the bad, between evil 
and that which does not belong under the 
title, we can rise in this secular' assembly to- 
night, and with devoutly reverential senti- 
ments declare, that so far as the conduct of the 
Democratic candidate for the Presidency, in 
1876, is before the people — as it now appears, 
after all the proper, searching inquiry and in- 
vestigation — in tlie white light that has beaten 
upon him and all his words and deeds dur-ing 
the campaign season, with power "lo blacken 
every blot" — so far as his life in respect to 
his candidacy is concerned, from Ma}' to 
March, he does not; need the prayers of any 
man. Nor can I fail to add in sucli evidently 
appropriate juxtaposition : wliile it is the al- 
most universal l)elief of enlightened people, 
that there is a divine forgiveness, not only for 
the acts and thoughts of imperfection and in- 
firmity, which are inseparable from human 
life, but also for the willful and most heinous 
sins of commission, it is not within the creed, 
or conscience, or suspected letter, of any theol- 
ogy that was ever outlined, to imagine that 
the witting receiver of stolen goods is any bet- 
ter than the thieves that enrich him ; or that 
a marble " fence" store, or a government junk 
shop, inhabited by political burtjlars and pick- 
pockets, where the nominal keeper calls to 
himself the principal cracksmen and panel 
sneaks who have successfully combined to 
steal foi- him both his house and his goods, is 
made by virtue of a concert of prayer or a tu- 
mult of sacred opera a sanctified dwelling- 
place for religious stategmausbip and republi- 
can honor. 

We are told that during the culminating 
days of the conspiracy at W;ishiMgton, the 
leaders and managers of the Radicil party 
were in a "tevei-ish condition of hope"; 
they expressed the belief that if they could 
once more secure a term of Fedei al power, no 
matter under what auspices or by what lever- 
age, they could perpetuate their party su- 
piemacy during the remainder of the century. 
I am not here to say that their hope and ex- 
pectation as thus chronicled wns strange or 
unreasonable. It is certain that by very dif- 
feient channels, men who manage in the Rad- 
ical party and men who have merely con- 
sented to abide in it hitherto, or within the.- 
litest dates, argue out for tliemselves and 
their own judgments and consciences, and 
for their neighbors, the justice and propriety 
of such a foretelling. Our time here does not 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



permit us to analyze the eelf-excueing plausi- 
bilities of the relatively better class, and the 
coriespondiiigly least, iufiiieiiliul members of 
the Radical committees. 

The main Conspirators of the Radical party 
unquestionably rejuice in the unclouded be- 
lief that by the same line of conduct tliat has 
been pursued by them, or under their direc- 
tion, dining the past eiglit or ten years, the 
perpetuity in power of the " Republican" or- 
ganization can be maintained for their special 
use and aggrandizement. More stealing, more 
gathering of plunder — more disciplining of 
forces that work best under the seive of dis- 
honest public appropriations of money, bonds 
and lands. These men who are at "the very 
bead of the administration, as controlling offi- 
cers or as '"Powers beliind the throne," do 
not believe, and do not pretend to believe, 
that there exists any enlightened moral senti- 
ment, discriminating as to the real fact of 
abuse and the only or best mode of remedy — 
existing among the masses of the people — 
■which can be referred to or relied upon by 
the combatants for honesty and right in the 
affairs of government. In their secret con- 
ventions, as we are told by some of their 
comrades, who have through some inadver- 
tence been apprehended and sent to jail, and 
who have harbored revengeful feelings 
against their fellows on this account — in 
their private consultation chambers, they do 
scotf at the idea of such a popular moral sen- 
timent as I have indicated. 

And in open illnstralion of this contempt 
for all appeals whirh presuppose or attrib- 
ute a general rectitude of tliought and pur 
pose iimoiiK the masses, wliat is or could be 
more conclusive than the scene at the JJa- 
lional Capitol, where Senator Jim Blaine ap- 
pears the conspicuous figure :— entering the 
Senate Chamber " with his face all aglow 
with smiles," and relating to his fellow Radi- 
cal Senators — (not shunning with shame a 
few Democratic auditors) — how the Louis- 
iana Returning Board had reduced their an- 
nouncement of the theft of the vote of the 
State to " fractions," and actually given publi- 
cation to Parish numee, and the special pre- 
tences assigned thereto, in several outcasting 
paragraphs! And the Radical Senatorial as- 
sociates of this branded scoundrel Ha! Ha! 
with him, before the Senate of the United 
States — theieby interrupting the proceedings 
of that body — .ind, by the telegraphed record, 
sending befu'e all the people, their laugh 
over tiie action of the infaujous Returning 
Board of Louisiana in going into the extreme- 
ly unnecessary atfectation of making a figure 
and fractional showing in some respects, or 
in some instances, of their method and re- 
sults in " doing business! " 

To the same couilusion take another illus- 
tration. Alter " a praj'erful season" — (and 
my friends, how has the Christian religion 
been defamed and debauched by the national 
exliibltiou of Cant and Phariseeism we have 
had during the past few weeks) — after a 
prayeiful Sunday and Slonday and TuesJay, 
called by himself for himself, the usiii-perin the 
AVhiie House is reported in one of his party 
organs, as receiving " with great cordiality " 
the ineuibers of the Louisiana Returning 
Board, fresh from the examination room 
where they had confessed all tlieir alleged in- 
iquities thrice over; "' listening with pleased 
countenance to their expressions of high per- 
sonal regard," and dismissing them with as- 
surances of his " esteem for them person- 



ally," and his commission ^' to tlicm to bear 
with them to their people his desire to so 
conduct affairs as to bring peace to their sec- 
tion of the country." 

And one more illustration. Morton, the 
Radical Danton, whose presence and influ- 
ence was not to be tolerated at the White House 
if Hayes was elected, (so we were told during 
tlie campaign, by the usurper's "bosom 
friends,")— Morton appears at the north east- 
ern gateway of the Presidential garden, and 
has himself reported as unable to venture 
across the slippery walks. Instant, the usur- 
per comes forth ; " greets his distinguished 
guest with the utmost cordiality" — I quote 
from the New York Timex — and seats him- 
self in the carriage beside this notoriously 
unprincipled political (-haiL-itan — who is 
ready to profess any political sentiments at 
any time — and there holds " close conversa- 
tion for half an hour." 

Fellow citizens : the question is one that is 
at the heart of the nation's history and 
hope ; at the foundation of all approximate 
assurance of a change for the belter in the 
admistralion of Federal affairs in our day and 
generation : Does there exist a moral senti- 
ment among the people to which a saving 
and sufficient a ppe.il can be made against the 
Conspirators during the administration term 
on which we have entered ? Are the Radical 
managers correct when they assume, as they 
loudly do assume, tliat the people are either 
ready and anxious to sanction all their deeds 
of recent record, or too blind from prejudice 
or sheer ignorance to perceive the political 
iniquities of the Conspirators in their true 
light, or discern their kindred and infernal 
intentions ? Are the men who go about the 
streets of our cities and towns proclaiming 
jubilantly the utter fi>lly of any address to 
the sense of right and truth andjusiice in the 
breasts of a large majority of our fellow citi- 
zens, correct iu their judgment on this all- 
important matter? Is their shriek of deris- 
ion at every earnest effort to inform the peo- 
ple as to the real condition of national affairs, 
and to stir up their minds by way of lively 
remembrance against the day of righteous 
wrath for unpatriotic men, a very psalm of 
rejoicing that shall not be hushed until the 
physical revolution comes to make a terrible 
retribution for prolonged terms of national 
jobbery and repeated usurpations? It is 
the question that cannot be italicised too fre- 
quently; it is a fearful question; and one 
which concerns every citizen before me fully 
as much as it can personally affect or reason- 
ably excite the humble speaker of the evening. 

We mai/ say for one another, as well as for 
ourselves individually : We can endure the 
fact and the increase and the piomise of this 
condition of affairs as long as any one else. 
We may say, with seUish congratulation over 
our own exemption from the untold and un- 
utterable sorrows of anarchy and mob devas- 
tation : Our country is so large, ^ o rich, so un- 
developed, with such immense material resour- 
ces, with such a multitude of existing and 
npspiinging commercial interests — so many 
thousand avenues of trade, so many opportu- 
nities for new ;iiid remunerative manufactur- 
ing — with such correspiiuding possibilities for 
tide setting change which no man can take 
into his keenest endeavors to forecast and 
prophesy — all these things presumably ope- 
rating as a saving ventage or bewilderment, 
for a time — that we, at least, iu all human 
probability, shall not be disturbed or distressed 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



by the gathering on the fields of Gog and 
Magog. Let the plunderei-s riot if tliey will 
and as they will ; and cheat the people every 
time the majority elect honest rulers, aud by 
the ballot declare a disposition and determina- 
tion to substitute soundintelligence and probity 
in public stations in place of state's prison cun- 
ning and shameless rapacity. We might ex- 
claim to the jubilant supporteis of the Conspir- 
ators at Washington: "Shout to the full 
scope of your lungs over the achievements of 
your leaders and masters ; we neither stop 
our ears from chagrin, nor expect any serious 
personal injury or any inconvenience amount- 
ing to physical harm from these unholy tri- 
umphs which yon celebrate ; — which you cel- 
ebrate now with the blare of bugles and the 
roll of drums from marine and army bands, 
pressed into service through military orders, 
and now celebrate with prayers from Henry 
Ward Beecher, Cosmopolitan Consul New- 
man, I. S. Kalloch, John Glendeuning, Bob 
lugersol, and Frank Page." We may say, — 
we might, possibly, say, — that as there is 
nothing in tlie hurrah of fraudulent partisan 
triumph which torments us, so nothing in the 
plain letter of moral or material threatening 
against the country — misgoverned and plun- 
dered to the uttermost extent that we can sup- 
pose at all tolerable — will render us any the 
less secure in our respective habitations dur- 
ing our brief span of earthly existence. We 
may think this. We might say all this. On 
such a basis we might lay down our arms, or 
retire from the front; or take but an indiffer- 
ent part in the coming political contest. 

And yet : what is our duty ? Can we put 
aside the armor of patriotism, and justify our- 
selves as conscientious men before the coun- 
try, in the light of history,— in accordance 
with the hope that springs and swells within 
our bosoms, like rivers of great waters, as 
we look into the faces of our little children ! 

For one, I have my retrospect, my confes- 
sion and my vow, in the statement of which 
I will be entirely candid. Not obtruding my 
words under these titles in a spirit of egotism; 
but giving them because I Ijelieve they will 
put me on a tit and fraternal basis with many 
of you, and in a square and desirable plane of 
understanding with all, during this evening's 
communication. 

I am glad, aud I am bereaved, and I am re- 
solved. 

I said to you, five months ago, that the judg- 
ment seals were set ; that Samuel J. Tilden 
would be elected president of the United 
States. Did I then speak tl e words of truth 
aud soberness ? Samuel J. Tildeu was elect- 
ed President of the United States under the 
provisions of the Constitution : having besides 
a popular vote larger than that ciphered for 
him by his most sanguine supporters. Tlie 
people by majorities that must not be set aside 
from our daily answering memories, declared 
thatSamuelJ. Tildeu should be the President 
of the United States. 

In response to the editorials telegraphed 
from New York to the San Francisco " Inde- 
pendent Pre.=s," and the stumj) orators' quota- 
tions therefrom, uttered by the outriders for 
Morton and Sargent on this coast, I endeavor- 
ed to make plain the fact that the evidently 
earnest hope, aud, perhaps, sincere exjiecta- 
tion of a victory for the Radical ticket in New 
York, was unwarranted, if not ridiculous. Did 
I I'eason outside of the suggestions of the rec- 
ord and the probabilities of the hour ? That 
great State gave Samuel J. Tildeu one hun- 



dred and seven thousand more votes than be 
received when he ran for the gubernatorial 
office. 

But the conspirators "counted out" Sam- 
uel J. Tilden : — by a succession of audacious 
proceedings and a series of thieving tricks 
they accomplished their purpose ; and to-day 
a usurper sits in the chair of President Wash- 
ington I 

Five months ago, I said in the presence of 
many of you that if Samuel J. Tildeu was not 
chosen President, and did not enter upon the 
duties of the office of chief executive, I should 
have my lenten days of sorrow. I think that 
I may without an exhibition of morbid or 
mawkish weakness, confess a profound grief 
over the result as it stand.s depicted. Let oth- 
ers, if they can and will, profess a compla- 
cency that enables them to accept such a re- 
sult, so brought about, with "cheerful acquies- 
cence.'' I have no common lot either with the 
man who snivels in public over a wholly per- 
sonal loss, or claims that he has no personal 
sensitiveness touched and made to suffer by 
unjust political defeat. It is not a mere mat- 
ter of loss of victory. It is not the fact of be- 
ing in a minority. Individually I have lost 
more than one contest, through the purchas- 
ing power of the Central Pacific Railroad 
Company, after the majority of the people in 
my district or state had voted for me as their 
choice for CongressioUfd Representative. And 
I do not say that I could long remain in a ma- 
jority in the Democratic party, if it were ad- 
mittedly successful in all its elections to-mor- 
row. 13ut this national record is insufferable 
to my mind, by reason of what I know of the 
bad management that has been justly charged 
against our side by our own associates, and 
on account of the giviugs-away that I cannot 
refrain from suspecting; and I have at times 
to dismiss the subject, by the strongest exer- 
cise of my will from the chambers of recon- 
ciliation. No physical voice of one man or of 
any rabble of men, — no whispering or mutter- 
ing of satisfaction over the success of the Con- 
spiracy, — brings me the slightest uneasiness, 
or serves to fix my meditations on the record. 
It is the general contemplation of the situa- 
tion which I can suffer and iuvite,at mj^own 
volition, that fills me with regrets and fore- 
bodings. 

But from such contemplation I rise without 
abated pangs of distress, but with new resolu- 
tion ; with a freshened spirit of liostility to 
every form of ])olitical debasement ; with in- 
flexible purpose of re-dedication to every good 
aud every orderly work of redemption in the 
interests of honest republican government. 
Let others do as they may. I believe that to- 
day the Union calls for yeoman service from 
her true sons, as sternly and imploringly and 
cheeringly as ever bef'oie in the annals of our 
nation's time. For myself, as opportunity pro- 
vides, in so far as in me lies, consistent with 
the least I must do under the first obligations 
of every citizen, I will strive aud be spent in 
the service of my country. That service is 
made clear to my conscience as a bright noon- 
day path : that little service now belongs in 
the ranks of the Democratic party of the peo- 
ple of the nation. 

Do you doubt the existence of a fair field 
for the contest? Is there a moral sentiment 
among the vast majority of the people that 
will reach the sores aud exci'escences of the 
body politic with destroying force ? Is there 
not in this country a burning caustic of public 
opiuion that will yet scorch and fire out the 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



elephantiasis wens and warts and bunions and 
cancers that are now personified in the places 
of government aiitliority ? Or have the lep- 
ers come in from without the gates, into the 
beautiful city and the lialls of dominion, and 
captured the temple and council house for all 
time ; fattening upon the substance as well 
as the luxurious overplus of a mighty nation ; 
screeching in diabolical delight over their 
own increasingly repulsive imag^ and ap- 
pearances and demeanor and dictations, as 
they parade in ghastly ranks through the 
corridors of the Capitol building, and issue 
mandates and carry out Conspiracies that 
correspond upon each leaf of history with the 
unspeakable hideousness of their personal 
characters ? 

Let us be thankful as we enter anew on 
the service of patriots, that now there is so 
much more of absolute verity in the division 
on the one side as against the other. Only 
get the facts before the people, and it must be 
seen that this is the right or this is the wrong- 
Let the responsibility be welcomed, that 
sits indisputably on the constitution or wilful 
and wicked wish and pertinacity of the in- 
dividual. There is no compromise, there is 
no halfway house of judgment, when we do 
succeed in dragging the statement of the 
actual events before the couimunity. Tilden 
should have been inaugurated President of 
the United States, or Hayes is the rightful 
Chief Executive of the Republic. The effort 
made with every muscle taughteued and ev- 
ery nerve keyed up to the uttermost tension — 
with eyeballs horribly protruding and fixed 
in their staring, from rush of blood to the 
head— to make it seem that there is not a 
sharp line of demarkiition between the politi- 
cal ami moral truth and falsehood in this na- 
tional diary of the last twelve months, will 
prove to bs vain and impotent, if we do but 
follow the forms of simple duty everywhere, 
and keep the indisputable story in ever-pres- 
ent lettering among the masses of our fellow- 
citizens. On the one side or the other is the 
perfect right, or the clear, unqualified, unmit- 
igated wrong. The proceedings and incidents 
at which we have already glanced exhibit the 
case in unmistakable explicitness to the in- 
telligent understanding, and every step or 
thought of real inquiry will disclose deeper 
soundings for the gulf of separation. The 
Louisiana record is complete and beyond quib- 
ble or prevarication, in itself and by its inevi- 
table suggestions and impeachments and con- 
demnations. There need be no patience exer 
cised with those notoriously faint-hearted, 
soft-brained citizens who always imagine they 
see so much good on both sides of party lines 
that they never do thoroughly cast their own 
vote. But no man can be blamed for error 
of party choice, when he is not put in posses- 
sion of the record that justly belongs to the 
canvass ; — presuming, always, that he uses 
reasonable, conscientious means to obtain and 
read the needed chapters of contemporaneous 
history. The division is dear: — so much 
out of the situation to be grateful for, by every 
lover of the straight street to the house of 
judgment. 

Many men, let us believe and be ready to 
concede that uiany thousands upon thousands 
of good men, voted for the Rutherford I?. 
Hayes electors under the firm conviction that 
the success of Samuel J. Tilden would be dis- 
astrous to the best interests of the country. 
Is it to be wondered at that such is the la- 
mentable fact ; when the " Independent 



Piess'' of the country was employed to do its 
uttermost for the propagation of such an 
opinion '/ It is with these good men that the 
work of conversion has alreaily had its per- 
fect day; or their clumge of party affiliation 
awaits our fair and zealous etfoits in inform- 
ing, iuctructiug aiul proselyting. And mark 
you, such men will not be offended by the use 
of the plainest terms of arraignment and speci- 
fication. 

I rejoice to know that, since the ides of No- 
vember, with thousands upon thousands of 
our fellow-citizens, scattered throughout the 
Union, the perfect day of illumination has 
come. They have disclaimed all fellowship 
with the men who did advise such proceed- 
ings as secured the inauguration of a usurper 
in the Presidential office ; and step by step 
their protest of heart, if not of voice and pen, 
followed the doings of the Conspirators at 
Washington during the last session of Con- 
gress. Such men 1 can count in San Fran- 
cisco by the score. I hope you can name them 
in El "Dorado County by the dozen. But 
some remain as yet uninformed ; or hesitat- 
ing because the same influeuces that bam- 
boozled them during the campaign persist iu 
the work of deception with them; strongly 
prevailing with unsophisticated minds. 

It would seem that hardly anything else is 
necessary in the programme of work for us, 
with reference to our neighbors and friends 
who are not utterly committed by criminal 
intent or bigotry to the cause of the Conspira- 
tors, than to make sure that those over whom 
we can exercise a direct influence behold the 
developments, as they are called, of the Ad- 
ministration, from day to day, in these early 
weeks of the term of the usurper ; the de- 
clared stultiHcatiou — so admitted and pro- 
fessed — as against the cry of the campaign on 
which these neighbors and friends voted a 
few short months ago. The avowed incon- 
sistencies are so glaring that they must natur- 
ally turn the attention of all observers to a 
comparison with the pleadings of the summer 
and fall of 1876 ; and the closer the study of 
all this real and all this simulated variance 
and betrayal, — this accepting the inevitable 
under duress, and calling the bitter " sweet," 
and this undoubted readiness to go some dis- 
tance on a highway of justice, if thereby amo- 
mentarybenelit can be obtained — the more cer- 
tain and positive and clinching the accessions 
to our political brotherhood. And it is by the 
work that will afterwards come from these 
proselytes, that the standard of political right 
and truth will be carried higher before the 
country and the world. Discovering how 
they have been practiced upon with false pre- 
tences, their sense of the exact wrong perpe- 
trated, and their exasperation at the retros- 
pect, will enable atul impel them to make per- 
sonal appeals to their fellow citizens more 
powerful than any we can devise or declaim. 
Let them see how the sham " work of recon- 
ciliation" uuder the usuiper is, for him, and 
in the name of the " Republican party," begun 
and continued, with shouts of " Pacilication,'' 
ami with a hundred offers of bargains 'twixt 
the robbers and the elect, and a thousancl 
venal propositions for office and emolument- 
reward to party infidelity uublushingly put 
forth, — if so be the junta of Radicalism, still 
under the lead and contml of the old political 
prostitutes who have shaped the Presidential 
Conspiracy, can be reinstated in popular fa- 
vor. 

Every true citizen here to-night, should 



6 THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 

strive from this hour until the day of electiou, the day of national interest ? We shall come 
to bring neighbors and social companions and again to this threshold inquiry, -with more di- 
occasional visiting friends, who voted the rect personal allusion, by and by ; and that 
Radical ticket last f:ill, face to face with the right home in California— if I have your pa- 
evidence of the contrasts and mutual condem- tience with me so far. 

nations of recent Administiation doiugs ; by In passing from tiiis point or admonition 

Bomo personal, respectful, proselyting meth- of duty, and the manner and relative ease of 

ods. Let not the minds of these subjects for its perforniauce towards our neighbors and 

your persuasion be led away from the fact friends, we take np something springing from 

that last fall they were induced to remain in the last consideration, for the most anxious 

the ranks of the " Republican " organization and earnest of fraternal warninss. 

because it was proclaimed unto them^again and During the next four years there will he no 

again, that a Radical success at that time was end of promises of good from the administra- 

essential to prevent the unmixed evil of the tion ; there will be constant reiteration of aa- 

domiiiation in tlie Southern States of such suiances that great good has been accom- 

men as Wade Hampton, Xichols, and Ben. plished by the usurper aud his cabinet and 

Hill; because it was intimated that a new in- their advisers. The Western Union Tele- 

surrection in the South— actual rebellions in graph monopoly and the " Independent Press" 

one locality and another, with horrible negro- will be devoted to this work of manuf ictur- 

massacres — would follow the recognition of ing a popular opinion, to the etfect that al- 

such men as Wade Hampton and Nichols as though the President of the United St;ite8 

Governors of their respective States. In pre- defacto, may be challenged as a man who has 

cisely these particulars were the charges of no legal right to the office which he holds, 

slumbering treason and inhuman disposition yet he does so conduct himself in his high 

and determination shed abroad by the chain- station, which has been stolen for him — he 

pions for the Radical ticket in the campaign does in some respects so imitate the virtues of 

of 1876. It must not be forgotten that the the administration that was outlined by the 

staple of the Radical campaign of 1876 was Democratic Platform and the writings of 

" the bloody shiit." And under its folds the Samuel J. Tilden— as not only to entitle him- 

summons went forth, to keep, and cajole, and self to the commendation of the people, but 

capture. also to recommend the party managers who 

Now read the current record, and induce fradulently counted him into the executive 

your sometime " Republican" neighbors to do chair to the complacent consideration, to the 

the same. wholesale forgiveness, perhaps even to the ad- 

Again there come before us personal illus- miration of citizens, irrespective of party 

trations with irresistable demonstration of du- lines. In this way, by these channels for 

plicity and fraud. Jim Blaine tnkes a special general communication and repeated assertion 

lookout, after the Georgia Senatoiial Electiou, of excellence — with respect to things necessa- 

that he may be the first to welcome on the ry to he done by any chief executive, and 

lloor of the Senate Chamber, at the National with respect to many little and some large 

Capitol, the very man whom it was hurrah- reforms (for which everybody will be duly 

iugly said that Jim was elected to combat and glad) which he and his surroundings coiild 

o vertln-o w — even Ben. Hill, of Atlanta. And not do otherwise than assent to, or acquiesce in, 

when this welcome was extended, there ap- in obedience to the manifest will of that very 

peared to be every probability tiiat Tilden majority which chose Samuel J. Tilden Presi- 

would be the inaugurated President. dent of the United States— it is even hoped 

Where is the bloody shirt ? on which was not only to save the Conspirators from merit- 
inscribed— as their orators had it — " in Let- ed retirement, but actually to reverse the pop- 
ters of Living Light," the denunciations by ular party verdict of 1N76; — when the popular 
Representative Jim Blaine against Southern majority over all of 160,000 votes, aud a mil- 
rebels aud their alleged insurrectionary inten- lion majority of white men, declared that not 
tions — denunciations uttered in a quick retort, the creature of Chandler aud the Camerons 
and also in studied phrases over the text of a and Morton and Gould, but another person 
speech by Representative Ben. Hill, otGeor- should be President of the United States — 
gia. Can this thing be, and not overcome us none other than that noble gentleman, that 
all with disgust at the boldest and basest po- grand old Jetfersouian statesman and Political 
litical and personal inconsistency and infidel- Reformer— Pre-eminent before the world in 
iiy among Radical chieftains? Can this be, the Centennial year of our country— Samuel 
and not open the eyes of the simplest man J. Tilden, of New York, 
among the number that composed the hosts of Be not deceived. Imitations and affecta- 
compfetely deluded citizens who did support tions there will be ; and making-the-most by 
Rutherford B. Hayes at the ballot box, on the way of profession and out of enforced good 
7th of last November? Is there to be any conduct there will be. Be not deceived, 
standard of honest judgment on political con- The stream cannot rise higher than the foun- 
duct in this land? May you and I be one tain. Do men gather grapes of thorns and 
person in politics to-day, and absolutely an- ligs of thistles 1 Reforms there will be. Re- 
other person in politics "to-morrow — quite the forms there must he in any Administration 
reverse — and then shout cheerilv to the cheat- that succeeds the administration of Ulysses S. 
ed thousands who sanctioned the tirst declar- Grant. Or so the changes will appear— 
ation; formally extending an invitation to them whatever they may be, be they really State 
to continue their support under an exactly op- Reforms or merely a change in the games of 
posing prodamalion, or apparently expecting cards at the White House— so they will ap- 
unabated approval ? Is there no'intellectual pear at the first blush of announcement. We 
inteijrily to be accredited among the masses, will have such "Reforms" as Morton and 
capable of judging of such vaulting tricks and Jay Gould would have conceded to the people 
tumbles, with soleinnjadgment; a mental up- in person, had they been counted into the 
rightness that is to be vindicated in conclu- Presidential chair ; none other or different, 
sioub as to how this and that citizen will vote Be not deceived. There may be a pretence 
in this State this year and the next, and on of dissolving party ties, as there is a readiness 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



to do anything to recover fiivor among the 
people — anything that will not sacrifice tlie 
preceilence and power in plunder of the men 
who by IVaiid placed Rutherford B. Hayes in 
the Presidential clmir. Much will be in;ide 
of the pul)lic declarations of every old liulii 
who — quire on tiie ragged edge of going to 
pieces in every sense of the word— may be 
appointed to cry out in behalf of a general 
" brealiing up of parties." 

Be not deceived. There may even be se- 
rious attempt or labor to actually change the 
name of the " Republican Party." That's an 
old trick of some of its present owners. When 
a Contract and Finance Company has robbed 
the nation of a few millions, more or less, and 
it looks strongly as if there was going to be a 
call for an uccouiiting, it may be considered 
judicious to disincorporate, and change the ti- 
tle of the company to the Western Develop- 
ment Association, and buin the books, and 
pension ott some of the clerks of the ftjrmer con- 
cern. But the same thieves ujay be gathered 
together, with new title, and renew their 
roundabout, shuttle cock and battledore pro- 
cesses ot State and Nation robbery. 

Be not deceived. Hampton and Nicholls 
must be acknowledged Governors of their re- 
spective Connnonwealths, or there will be 
civil war within the borders of South Caroli- 
na and Louisiana ; or there will be the ap- 
pointment of two military Governors, with 
all the perplexities and exposures of Radical- 
ism which such a proceeding would inevita- 
bly involve. Delays in the issuance of orders 
and dallyings in "Commissions" will be 
had and commended ; maneuveriugs to dis- 
cover, if possible, some exculpating methods 
of coming to the unavoidable. O, if there 
could be a shining, dazzling pathway cut 
through the woods, by which the ordinary 
observer would not see that the President of 
the United States permitted one man to be 
Governor who came in the same direction that 
his competitor for the highest office travelled, 
with the same credit for a destination ticket ! 

There will at limes be cunning displayed in 
affecting to steal the policy of the party 
whose elected candidate was deprived of his 
office by chicanery and fraud. But if there is 
a moral judgment existing among the majority 
millions of this Republic, the measure of re- 
formatory action that must come in any ad- 
ministration — that vrould come, I repeal, un- 
der Morton himself -will not avail to stay 
the rising wave of judgment — inevitable, ir- 
repressible, irresistible, overthrowing, exter- 
minating ! 

Be not deceived. Some reformatory 
movements are absolutely necessary from the 
circumstances of the situation. The party 
division in the two houses of the National 
Legislature guarantees this. The wish for a 
personal retention of power on the part of 
the leading Conspirators promises this; al- 
though with them, undoubtedly, there is the 
expectation that while the right hand of the 
Executive obtrusively shows gifts of honor 
and justice, the lingers of the hand that is not 
displayed will secretly sign permissions or 
commands in their behalf for more than coun- 
terbalancing charters for plunder and extor- 
tion. 

Be not deceived. There will be all sorts 
of wars, so called, and rumors of wars, within 
the ranks of the Radical party durinir the 
.administration term of Rutherford B. Hayes. 
Co7ip-de-Solcil-Bhnue commenced that 
sharp practice in the Senate ; and has 



deceived some. Now it will be this leader, 
now it will be another. The principal Cor- 
rupter of Congress, and one of the greatest 
monopolies on earth, I he Western Union Tel- 
egraph Company, with its twin or creature, 
the Associated Phkss Bureau, will be 
tearfullv exercised every now and then, in 
despatching to the Pacific C(.)ast "Lndepen- 
DENT Press'' accounts about this and that 
principal villain in the pack of Presidency 
thieves; — how this one or that one has be- 
come dissatisfied, disgusted, morose, mad, ob- 
streporous, " rambankshious," " rearing and 
tearing," all because tootsy-pootsy, sweety- 
eety, rosy-posjs pansyanzy Rutherford B., 
— protege of Sladisou Wells, John Sherman, 
Jay Gould, Zach Chandler, and O. P. Morton, 
— has insisted on doing something so, 0, so 
goody-oody, that every body-oddy ought to 
get right down on tlieir knees, and thank 
their stars and every bodyodie-else' stars, 
that such a sweety-eety, rosy-posy, panzy-an- 
zy cherub-saint was thrust into the Presi- 
dential chair of a mighty nation by the great- 
est political atrocity ever perpetrated within 
the confines of a Republic ! 

Be not deceived. And let not your neigh- 
bors and friends be deceived any more. All 
tills is but a part of a well-rehearsed piece of 
"strategy, my boy," with which to gull the 
multiiude. Sprats for gudgeons, springes to 
catch woodcocks, — manikin Jonahs to be 
thrown overboard as bait for a whole 
belly full of ballots to be cast upon 
some Florida reef, or emitted on the 
bank of some Louisana bayou, or depos- 
ited on a reedy ocean beach of South Caro- 
lina. Diversions to amuse the groundlings, 
while their day of sovereignty passes, while 
their names are being voted — perhaps in the 
eighth precinct of the tenth ward of San 
Francisco; snutf to be thrown in the eyes of 
business-laden, travel worn citizens, who are 
approaching home with a view to vote "no 
confidence" in his frauduleucy's administra- 
tion; sulphuric acid cider, to be crammed 
down the throat of rural innocents, under 
one pretence and another, by wandering 
Radical peddlers; — innocents who were just 
waking up to a realizing tense of the fact 
thiit theretofore they had been drugged with 
the rinsings of tlie '' bloody shirt," and had 
better improve an adjacent opportunity to go 
on tlie witness stand, against their deceivers 
and impostors, before the jiii'y of the nation. 

It will be puff, puff, puff, day in and 
night out, for the fraudulent President; and 
desperate exceptions will be reported to have 
been taken to his perfect line of conduct by 
succeeding Radical actors on the National 
stage; all ending in the defeat of the re- 
bellious chieftains and the triumph of Virtue, 
as it is personified in the Presidential chair. 
And shortly thereafter, th.eie will be direct 
or implied confession of error, on the part of 
the fellow who has given up his cue and 
taken off his buskins, and a dozen paragraphs 
by telegraph describing the demonstrations 
of welcome home to the wanderer from the 
Radical fold; coining back in penitential 
tears to the kitchen door of the good butler 
in the VVhite House. And then must come an 
apotiieosis : before the country sits Rutherford 
B. Hayes on a revolving pedestal; sun-satu- 
rated clouds all around him! And sacrilege 
most infamous, desecration upon desecration 
most grievous : every Revolutionary hero 
and martyr, every whole-souled patriot and 
scholarly statesman, who has long since had 



8 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



Becular canonization in the hearts of the in- There is the contempt of the " Independent 

tellitrent people of this land, ^viU have liis fam- Press "—which is mvanably the press of the 

iliar" face photoijraphed for this display— set lobbying corruptionists of the country, except 

on the red margin round about the Presiden- where the managers have themselves a sep- 




and commanded to sit, by the voice and votes ated contempt of the papers tliat come boast 
of a mi-hlv maioritv multitude of the peo- fully under this caption, against Poli- 
ple of the "United States of America. ticians," and especially against " Ward Foh- 

O, my countrymen : will vou be deceived ticians," and '•.Politicians of the Street, 
orperm'it your 'next-door neighbor or your Let us inquire into this matter, for it is im- 
saluting friend to be deceived any longer by portant. ,r- i 

8uch thin devices and demonstrations? Will Probably, unless yoa interest yourself in the 
you be humbugged or fascinated, or permit first processes of the canvass, the strong op- 
your associates to be hoodwinked or en- portuulty for your personal inliuence is gone; 
chanted, while John Sherman plays the role you will not have acceptable men in your lo- 
of financier, and his implements receive the cal or county conventions; you will not secure 
highest honors at his hand, in the house of nominations and expressions of political faith 
the executive; and Carl Schurtz abides in and doctrine in accordance with your best 
the same circle under a man he speciallv sin- judgment, and, I will presume, in consonance 
gled out as especially unfit to be President with the views of a large and honest majority, 
—sitting tliere under a conditional con- Of all miserable, flagrant, and as it seems to 
tract; while every evil genius that lent a me, self-evident contradictions in life— being 
helping hand to the Conspiracy has audience, citizens here as we are— of all sickening in- 
aud boasts in turn a thorough and intimate consistenciesof public speech, defend me now 
friendship with tlie ruler they have made in and forever against hearing, and protect me 
spite of the constitutionally registered ver- in reading, these stereotyped tirades against 
diet of the People? politics and parties, and the men who engage 

But before I proceed further, right in this everywhere, under the proprieties, in the de- 
connection, let me have my first hearty word bate of the political issues of the day, and par- 
in congratulation on your organization. You ticipate in the preliminary and consummating 
have taken the initiative in the work of or- management of political associations, which 
gauizing which ouirht to be followed in every are to carry out— if ever they are put in prac- 
other county in 'California, and for which tical operation— the written principles of a 
you must have the credit of pioneer enter- free government. 

prise and wisdom. Politics are as we make them. I believe 

' Your organization will be the channel for and insist that it still requires an adjective or 
communications, and furnish the forum for a challenging context, to really stigmatize a 
debates that must undeceive hundreds of politician ; that is, such addition for such a 
worthy people. Among the methods for such purpose is necessary, outside of the " Inde- 
a needed business under your auspices, I pendent Press." The first definition of the 
shall venture to select and" to submit some word in every dictionary makes the appella- 
that seem to me most judicious. tion a credit to any man; and if popular 

You call me here to speak. And so, at the odium nas been smoked into its syllables, the 
outset or within your preface days, you de- wholesome word should be rescued from the 
clare a good work of vindication." I say this down grade of signification, and returned to 
without acknowledging the compliment or the original excellence of isolated meaning, 
the flattery that exists'iu the fact or form of The more thoroughly a community is inter- 
the invitation. ested in politics, within the due and decent 

Who is to labor for the people, with the limits of life as those boundaries are under- 
people, in these degenerate days ? Let him stood by us all, the more certain the outcome 
be named quickiy and squarely. It is the of worthy men in ofiice, bound by a clear and 
honest politician. Come now, let us look at formal i)iedge, aud obligated by the still more 
him. It is the day for plain speech upon the binding rule of their own sense of honor, to 
subject. I may turn your gaze to better men protect and foster the rights of the whole 
than I have a right to class myself with; to people. '• Takes too much time from private 
strontrer minds than I profess to exercise in business?" Why, it is your time for your 
the service of the people as a politician ; but couuti'y. " The effects of the associations and 
I am not immodest in the hope and belief excitement are dissipating." Why, you all 
that none of my respected associates in the niake up the associations ; and experience on 
field have more of sincere devotion or relent- the soberest page of history preaches the 
less will in the cause of Democracy. Let healthfulness of the magnetism and the inter- 
that stand as my introduction to this section est and the enthusiasm that is in such labor 
of the address. . and convocations. Most of you have gone 

My friends, here is one and there is an- iiome better men from the halls of political 
other person continually prating about the disputation, consultation and arrangement. 
" filthy pool of politics." And here is one i appeal to you if it has not been so ? There 
man and there is another regularly engaged jg more " dissipation " in the theatre and un- 
in declaiming regretfully about his own hesi- der the spell of the merriment-making min- 
tancy, and everybody else's reluctance — the strelsy than in your club assemblies. And 
general and notorious reluctance of good citi- yom- "wives may have a greater assurance of 
2ens — to enter upon the labor of forming and 
managing political conventions * 



* I use the very ^5h^a^e of the disparaging 
talkers and writers, that there may be no mis- 
take in my allusions. 



your respectable whereabouts, if you promise 
to come here, than during the long evenings 
you have regularly appropriated for " the 
Lodge." 
And what is the evidence and demonstra- 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



tion of this great eatberiiiij here tonight ? A 
epectacle for the '• Iii(k-peudent Press" to 
weep over ! Leading ojipouents desiring to 
know what is uie uit by this meeting, in what 
seems to tbem the mid winter of our discom- 
fiture. A glorious testimony this to your pa- 
triotic sympathy, resolution and hope. And 
will you not be able to say, setting aside all 
consideration of the poverty of my para- 
graphs : " For the greetings and the mutual 
and the personal benefits to us as citizens of 
a common country, it was good for us to have 
been there " ? Yet, every one of this vast 
audience is here as a practical politician. 

Why, if you are to accept the daily editor- 
ials of these metropolitan "Independent" 
newspapers, and those who relish and repeat 
their saw-dust sentences, the maxim " Eternal 
Vigilance is the Price of Liberty " should be 
ignominiously stricken from the table of patri- 
otic proverbs. 

Fellow citizens: Have we any other way 
of effectively displaying our Vigilance save 
by our action in the piditical arena ? Why, 
sir, sometimes I have feared, amid the whiz- 
zing of unpleasant epithets shot by the influ- 
ential " Independent Press " at every man, 
and at all classes and clubs of men, who " en- 
gage in politics," followed by approving rec- 
itations from many weak-minded creatures 
in the wake of the " Independent Press," — I 
have feared lest a majority of our people ac- 
tually forget what kind of Government we 
are credited abroad with possessing — a Gov- 
ernment of the people, for the people, by the 
people.* It is our imperative duty to engage 
in politics ; so much so that — other tilings 
being equal — given the ordinary opportunities 
of mankind in this country — it may be said 
that he who does not directly interest himself 
in politics is unworthy the legacy of free in- 
stitutions. 

But let us come close, and, if possible, con- 
clusively examine this subject, with two or 
three illustrations which touch the extremes 
of constant interest and devotion, in the 
ecpially honorable, yet confessedly widely 
contrasting service of politics. They may 
give us an analysis and a test of the whole 
practical question of privilege and duty in the 
premises— something that will justi'fyingly 
abide in our memories. Can we not set in 
the pillory these whining, snuffling, cringing, 
crawling, every-way mean and mercenary 
fellows who "run" the pretentiously "im- 
partial " daily press of our principal cities — 
serving the monopolies always, always, al- 
ways, with the Pecksniffiau editorial squeak, 
"Hi! hi! hi! that's a politician, that's a 
politician, that's a politician ; and that's a 
bhoy!'' — [this last is considered a crusher] — 
" Hi ! hi ! hi ! If you want to know who you 
ought to vote for, hear us ! Read what we 
write ! We don't care for politics or poli- 
ticians. We're unbiased ; we're pious, we 
are !" 

Is not the weiilthiest man in Placerville, 
proportioned to his profits and his risks and 

* In re-reading this speech, before sending it 
to the priuter, I have been compiiuctiously re- 
minded of the fact that it is hardly possible to 
dwell upon the character of the Administration 
that recently has been, and now is, without -con- 
stantly, inadvertently, using words and phrases 
that imply an absolute Ruler, rather than a Re- 
publican President. The battle of the Demo- 
cratic party is for a President of the People, and 
a Ruler only against those who have been, and 
now are, public thieves. 



his pecuniary expectations, profoundly inter- 
ested in obtaining and perpetuating good 
government ? Do not ids most selfish con- 
siderations impel him to take an active part in 
the management of political affairs ; to that 
end, making it his business to ascertain the 
first proposition for organization in his pre- 
cinct or ward, iu the party to which he may 
be attached ? Has he not an original place 
in the councils of the people, where he will 
be gladly received by associates and friends, 
and where his advice and suggestions and 
protests will be heeded, and made most ef- 
fective by their timely utteriince 1 The more 
completely intelligent, respousible men in any 
community fill tlie measure of reasonable at- 
tention to politics, from the very commence- 
ment, of a canvass, the more certain is honesty 
of dealing at the polls and general excellence 
of result from the final ballot. These things 
do staud on end before our unvexed vision. 

And yet the statement of that which seems 
to you. perhaps, with all that has gone before 
to concentrate our thoughts on the subject, a 
very truism, is coml)ative against the depre- 
cating and denouncing and exiling cry of 
"The politicians! the politicians! the poli- 
ticians ! Cursed be they !" 

Ah yes : You wait and receive your in- 
structions from the metropolitan " Independ- 
ent Press ' — the blackmail organs of the Cor- 
ruptionists — when the tickets are all made up. 
Either go, under such dictation, for one candi- 
date or another, orj^nn an Independent Or- 
ganization, which shall be avowedly and ex- 
cludiugly controlled by the mauageis of these 
hermaphrodite journals. Have you not 
had enough of this sort of thing in the State 
of California? 

An enlightened pulpit tells men of wealth 
and men of leaining to be at the first political 
consultation room, and early at the primary 
polls ; and when, alter a campaign is over, 
the " Independent Press " has to relieve its 
shoulders a little, by shifting the water buck- 
et, we actually have essays to the same effect 
from that delectable quarter ! 

In other words and in short, when yon 
come down to the actual proprieties for the 
people, you find that :ill competent citizens are 
equally and impressively called upon to as- 
semble and discuss and plan and agree at the 
beginning of a political campaign ; and that 
in 80 doing every man ranks himself " a poli- 
tician ;" and that in thus being a politician — if 
he is a sincere man — he is none other than a 
patriotic American citizen. 

With Independent parties you may come 
to the same result on the same basis. The 
management may be the same in some in- 
stances; or you will have platform and nom- 
inations from a secret conclave of self-chosen 
delegates to a nominating convention or com- 
mittee. Under some circmmstances, in some 
localities, for one term there may be benefit 
assumed or proved from such an organiza- 
tion ; hut the experience of a century in this 
Republic has demonstrated that such organi- 
zations do not beget or l)ring about lasting re- 
forms. More money has been stolen in San 
Francisco by offiie-liolders who were nomi- 
nated and elected under the hauner of politi- 
cal Independencj", than during the administra- 
tion of Democratic and " Republican " rulers 
iu tiiat city. There is as much of distasteful 
record in State archives against the Independ- 
ent-party men management as can be hrought 
forth in criticism or censure of either the 
Democratic or Republican parties, who have 



10 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



been in power during the same or a longer pe- 
riod of time — comparing the same number of 
years. 

You must bear in mind that I am speaking 
now with reference to political duties of the 
citizens, as against the arraignment of all 
political paities. If you wait until nomina- 
tions are made, announcing that j'ou will 
Vote for "the best man,'' or for the ticket 
that has the largest number of candidates 
■whom you consider to be the " best men," 
you put yourself in the vocative. You may 
be obliged to vote for some men whom you do 
not think fitted in any respect for the ofBce to 
which they aspire, or you will be compelled, 
in common parlance, to throw your vote 
away ; or you may in a fit of disgust relin- 
quish your right of sovereignty for the year, 
and refrain fnmi approaching the polls. 

But again the piping voice of the echoer 
and rostrum-representative or star-chamber 
delegate of the " Independent Press " is 
heai-d: "The politician!" "The politi- 
cian ! " " The politician ! " 

If it be claimed that what I have said 
amounts to a discursive meditation, not di- 
rectly in reply to the challenge and the char- 
acterization and the condemnation that is in- 
tended and is given by the shout which has 
been quoted, I reply: — It is well to get the 
underbrush away, so that there cannot be 
any misapprehension or mistake when we do 
come flat up against the mammoth exclama- 
tion points of the whited-sepulchre pharisees 
of the '' Independent Press." Let us be sure 
what they mean, when they are put in a cor- 
ner to interpet their own libels upon the 
common people of this Republic. 

Noic they will tell us: "Why, the politic- 
ian is a man who goes around the country, 
from city to town, from town to village, ad- 
dressing whosoever will come to listen on the 
political questions of a political campaign." 
And they will Hatter themselves by adding in 
substance — these managers of the " Independ- 
ent Press" will so write — that they have done 
a very handsome thing ; that they have exhib- 
ited great condescension and good nature, in 
granting such an explanation, in such subdued 
and decent phrases. 

Is this politician a bad man ? He may be. 
He may be a hired talker, without principle, 
without conscience ; speaking on either side 
of a political issue according to his reward. 
You and I know such bad men in the State of 
California. I know a dozen such bad men ; 
always ready to don the mantle of political 
Independency. 

The common people understand the ethics 
of this matter. A lawyer may defend a client 
whom he knows to be in the wrong, and be 
thoroughly justified in so doing. But no man 
can mount the stump and advocate political 
doctrines which he does not believe, without 
meriting every opprobrious epithet which le- 
gitimately belongs to the "Independent 
Press." The dictionary is open for private 
indulgence, and we pass on. 

My friends : there is no difficulty in making 
a right discrimination here. You and I know, 
after a little observation and trial, in this lit- 
tle State of California, who are true men and 
■who are false. We know in our own re- 
spective communities where the honest man 
lives, and where the man without conscience 
and without courage has for the time being 
bis political headquarters. Does a citizen 
rise into prominence as a candidate for official 
Station ? His record is well known or easily 



ascertained. And notwithstanding the libeli 
that will be published against him, if he be a 
true anti-monopolist, a substantially just ap- 
preciation of the man is within the lines of 
your convenience. Fellow ciiizens : hcniest 
men do not fail to meet and form each others' 
acquaintance, and thereafter know and love 
each other as they pass and repass and so- 
journ, in political as well as in commercial 
circles — in California as fvell as in Connecti- 
cut. We all hate the dishonest politician, 
the Political hypocrite, the venal pleader of 
the stump. 

But " The politician !" " The politician !" 
" The politician!' Who is he that goeth 
about seeking whom he may devour; and 
agairst whom the apostolic balms-of-a-thous- 
aiid-fiowers that do dwell at San Francisco 
and publish the "Independent Press' are so 
much incensed ? You have every facility for 
seeing what manner of man he is. Is he 
your enemy or your servant? Is he your foe 
in ambush or your friend on the open liill-side? 
Some particulars as to the real individual 
will be appropriate. Very likely he is a man 
of very large family, as poor men are apt to 
be, and in this has a commonly accepted title 
to respect as an earnestly and deeply inter- 
ested supporter of home rule. Very likely 
he has a great and almost uninterrupted task 
in his calliny, his trade or profession, under 
which he must struggle with all his might to 
-win bread for his household. Very likely, 
he is not better nor worse than the average 
of his fellow citizens. But he has been 
brought up by his father, whose memory he 
cherishes, to love the literature of his coun- 
try; and his duty has been marked and map- 
ped therein. He was taught by liis mother — 
a sense of whose affection dwells like sum- 
mer sun-shine in his heart — that he must in 
all i^laces and on all occasions, when he shall 
have become a man — with due circumspec- 
tion as to the fitness of things — manifest his 
loyalty to his free country; — never, never 
foregoing clear opportunity_ to exhibit his 
grateful and combative zeal in behalf of the 
institutions of civil and religious liberty. 
He has been instructed and nurtured in the 
scholarship of the fact, the simple, the living, 
the duty-suggesting fact — which seems to be 
ignored a thousand times in this country for 
every occasion when it is practically recog- 
nized — that his country belongs to him ; that 
its laws and its powers and its privileges 
are literally a part of his inheritance; and 
that all its wonderful and gentle beneficence 
develops and involves corresponding ob- 
ligations against him. And common sense 
persuades and convinces him that if he has 
the ability to speak effectively to his fellow 
citizens on the political issues of the day, as 
he finds opportunity or has the occasion 
made for him — with reasonable respect for 
the more imperative demands of life — he 
must go abroad and stand up for the right, 
as God gives him to see the right. Woe ig 
upon him, if he proclaim not the political 
truth, and the just expediency for the pres- 
ent, and the waruiugs that ought to be 
sounded ; — even as the message comes to him 
in the watches of the night ! 

The labor of the politician who is called by 
his own sense of duty and the welcome of 
his fellow citizens to speak from the plat- 
form, is hard labor. It is not pastime. IS 
may be that he would prefer on all personal 
account to be at home with his wife and ba- 
bies. Though he loves to greet in the 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



11 



market places; and thoufjh wlien he goes 
down from his ret-idence in the monntKiiis, 
he is strenytliened by meeting the people 
who dwell in the valleys and in the st-aport 
cities, or is refreshed and made K'lad when 
he shall have irone up from the metropolis to 
the inland plains or foot hills or mountain 
sides or summits, and discoursed before the 
inhabitants who have their dwelliiiij places 
there, vet is his service hard work; if his 
speech be worth the hearing. It is not mere 
recreation. 

It is not pleasant at times — it is taxation 
upon every faculty of the mind, it is strain of 
intellectual skill and stress of nervous force, 
— to lead a conversation by natural lines 
awaj' from the topic that pleases him well, 
from the subject tliat he most delights to hear 
discussed by the man beside him; — it may be, 
from the theme of science or art, of inven- 
tion or discovery, of poetry or architecture; — 
it may be from the contemplation and inter- 
changing of helpful views on the commonest 
mutual concerns, other than political; — away, 
away, around to the subject of politics, local, 
State or national. But duty niav admonish 
and compel the conscientious politician to do 
this, ten thousand times during liis active life. 

The politician may have no ambition out- 
side of his toil-worn profession. Yet he will 
be stigmatized all the same. Or he may 
have a just and laudable desire to be accepted 
by his felloft' men as one worthy to bear rule 
— as the measure of a ruling power is com- 
mitted in this country — that he may bring 
about governmental reforms. Is he to be re- 
spected the less on this account? Let the din 
of the " Independent-Pie8s''-talk die out for 
a moment, that you may fairly see who the 
politician is; and what he really assumes to 

A sound politician in this country is among 
the best of patriots. And he who joins in the 
wholesale scoffing at the politician does not 
know what he is talking about, or does not 
care what he is talking about; or desires 
tor some s.nister purpose to set some particu- 
lar person aside from the path of popular pro- 
motion; or wishes to discourage the holding 
of public political meetings, or attendance 
thereon, in order that the people may have 
their officials named for them and their laws 
dictated by the mercenary wretches who con- 
trol the most licentious journals on the face 
of the earth, — ranged under the captivating 
heading of tiie ''Independent Press." 

Of course, there are hucksters and traders 
who largely if not exclusively engage in the 
business of politics; ofcentiines acquiring a 
livelihood and sometimes obtaining riches in 
office. They make merchandize in the tem- 
ple. But when you come to trace their his- 
tory, yon will almost invariably find that 
they have l)een "made," built up, be- 
fore the people, by this same "Independent 
Press." We know these men at home. Iii- 
telliireut citizens who study politics and polit- 
ical movements are not deceived as to their 
character for any great length of time. And 
while Jetfersonian clubs will affijrd proper 
and special opportunity for the display of true 
political sagacity on the part of every mem- 
ber, frauds will be di^covered and rebuked 
here ; and from hence discoveries and rel)ukes 
against all sorts of political frauds will go 
forth with enlightening emphasis, reaching 
through the county and the Slate, and strik- 
ing with no diminution of force because of 
the distance of the target on the high priest 



of all frauds, the chief among thousands and 
altogether despicable — Rutherford B. Hayes, 
the fi-andulenl President of the United States 
of America. 

'•I am a politician," wrote Thomas Jeffer- 
son, in 1814, "I always have been a politi- 
cian; I glory in the name; accoiding as my 
strength and opportunity may be, I shall con- 
tribute my labor to make the name and the 
occupation it imports more and more honora- 
ble, until the day of my death." 

But, perhaps, forced to graciously excuse 
the class of "politicians" I have delineated, 
as the haltit of the non-partizan organs of 
the Corruptioiiists is to confess and concede 
and avoid, when they are put in a corner: 
the cry uiav now be "The IVard Politician!" 
"The Ward Politician!" "The B'hoys." 
Shuffiing around, or clianging from a general 
call, the "Independent Press" will tell us 
that special contemptuous reference was in- 
tended for thg men and youths who gather 
nightly during a political campaign, in ward 
club rooms and party wigwams. Well, what 
of them? There are loafers everywhere, in 
every public place ; and as a rule, in San 
Francisco and Sacramento, (from which 
places I can speak from observation,) these 
v.'aifs, young and old, are regularly bought 
up by the Radical party mauiigers, — unless 
an "Independent" party management comes 
in to compete, and carry off these voting 
prizes. 

But what of the men and "b'hoys" that 
" hang around the Democratic ward rooms ?" 
I have put this searching question directly to 
the shrieking slanderers, many and luany a 
time. How nrmy " b'hoys" are there, to be so 
complained of ? Name them! Andinvariably 
the reply has brought forward no more than 
one name for each ward : — perchance because 
it was not prudent to risk the naming of any 
more, lest it be disclosed in rebuttal that the 
extra men were really the hired attaches of 
the pretentiously pure Radical or Independent 
organizations? ' But the one fearful example 
that is brought forward: what of this ward 
politician or wigwam " b'hoy ? " Why, he is 
a janitor for the l)uilding. Every church must 
have a sexton, or some one acting in that ca- 
pacity. The large churches in the towns and 
cities must have a sexton in daily attendance. 
Every bank must have a porter ; every large 
store must have a teamster ; every large fam- 
ily must have a servant. So simple are the 
parallel occupations. Some one must prepare 
a hall for a political assembly ; some one must 
provide or arrange seats, if they are not sta- 
tionary ; some one may be needed to procure 
fuel for fires within and without the building, 
to light the lamps, and see to it that there is 
a table and a pitcher of water for the officers 
and speakers. And if these assemblages are 
repeated, these services must be repeated ; 
and if they are regular and frequent, the ser- 
vices must be continuous during a canvass. 
Labor of this kind implies the want of a 
laborer ; and all labor is honorable. Some 
one must do it. In doing liiis, the result will 
be the awful spectacle of a man or youth in 
constant or regular attendance at the town or 
ward hall hired l)y a party for party meetings. 
The Pauline injunction that requires every- 
thing to be done decently and in order com- 
mends this attendance and labor. And yet the 
name of this honoral)le servant is the solitary 
sure victim of the indicters of the " b'hoys," 
in nearly every instance. 

Sometimes — and it always should be the 



12 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



case— newspapers and magazines are supplied ators, and ask tliem to stand up in public in 

for one or more tables in a political club-room, any community where they are well known, 

and citizens gather to read the publications and take the same number of " Independent 

tliere spread out or tiled. Let, these men who Press " managers, and bid them stand up side 

"run" the "Independent Press," go into by side, in a row on the opposite side of a 

our club-rooms on any one evening, and take platform, and I will invite and abide a judg- 

down the names of persons who fi^ather there ment on any basis of inquiry that involves 

for readinit and for fellowship salutations and consideration of personal record or political 

conversations, and print those names under intelligence or patriotic devotion or general 

one of their editorial diatribes against " ward moral character. I would solicit and abide 

politicians ? " They dare not do it. The list a verdict from any jury of respectable citizens, 

would expose their slanderous declarations or or a decision from any modern judicial tribu- 

inuendoes,— by virlue of the weil-kriowu re- nal in this country, of which I have had any 

spectability of the persons so arraigned. definite knowledge,— always excepting the 

Of course, there are bummers in all our cit- eiijht perjured scoundrels who composed the 

ies and towns who will lounge in and around majority of the Congressional Electoral Com- 

plaees for public assembly, if there is any- mission. 



thing to be gained by them in such expendi- 
ture of their time. That proves nothing 
in defence or justification of the sweeping 
accusation that we have been examinin" 



Here, in Jeffersonian clubs, let every mem- 
ber be recognized and honored as a politician. 

I congratulate you, people of El Dorado 
County, because in the early days of the 



Strange to s.iv, there are thousands of wor- year, when you can claim dispassionate 
thy people, aiiiong those who take a morning thoughts and purposes in your councils, yoa 
or evening paper that claims entire impartial- have come together upon the articles of polit- 
ity in political matters, who at breakfast or ical association which you have published, 
dinner accept as Gospel truth the grossest From heuce may the power of true political 
libels against their fellow-citizens,— libels that enlightenment t;o forth. From hence may 
are air duly classified under the caption you depart, when the sessions shall close, 
"Ward Politicians," and that are met anddia- from time to time, with your memories siip- 
sipated by a simple inquiry and ascertainment plied with pertinent facts and suggestive iu- 
such as I have indicated. qniries, and your minds braced with whole- 
All this editorial outcry is intended and cal- some, patriotic, Democratic resolutions— hav- 
culated to bring all political club meetings ii>g the temper and strength of your political 
into disrepute, in order that wrong mav tri- atflliations and determinations enhanced an 
umph in the absence of siftinsj public discus- hundred fold, as the open political truth passes 
sions and the lack of party discipline adapted fi'om one to each and each to all. May your 
to the enforcement of just principles through young men be instructed and encouraged here 
the forms of legislation. This motive is at to take their full share of interest and respon- 
the bottom of these daily flings and jeers and sibility in the field of politics. They are 
sneers at the American Politician. needed in the present contest. We look over 
Take your political views from a venal the catalogue of laboring political orators, and 
press, and go into secret camps over which mark our deficiencies, and wonder and hope 
the conductors of that press or their ancient concerning the supply of sensible and effect- 
agents preside, and agree to this and that pro- ive speakers. You must have young men 
gramme and ticket, and you will be heralded ""to whom a political sage might well ad- 
as " good men for the state," in the journals dress a call " because they are stronsr." My 
of the monopolists. attention and rejoicing is marked at each re- 
Be he rich or poor, learned or unlearned, curring visit here, on my sketching diary : 
the man who deserves the title of American "Beautiful girls and a manly lot of boys in El 
Politician is a hard-working, conscientious Dorado County." And with your appropri- 
citizen.* If there are no patriotic politicians, ate and fitting incentives for participation m 
then there are no political patriots in the political debates, we may expect soon to wit- 
ness here the coming forward on the public 
rostrums of your own sons, garlanded 
by the bands" of the fairest daughters 
in the commonwealth — educated, equipped, 
valiant and invincible soldiers of the Demo- 



land. 

These " b'hoys," in nine cases out of ten, 
are thoroughly honest young men. I have 
known them to reject oHers of thousands of 
dollars rather than desert a party standard or 



a personal friend in politics, when they were cratic faith. Happy shall I be if I am per- 
verv poor aud could not expect any reward for mitted to bid them All Hail ! to a champion- 
their faithfulness. Will any man of respect- ship in California of the cause of constitu- 
able reputation venture to "say as much for tional liberty. Nor shall I fail, if I survive 
one of these cat-footed, breath- bated creatures "nto that occasion, to remind them of what 
who publish "Independent" daily papers in they must owe to patriotic mothers and pa- 
metropolitan cities .' Produce one such in- triotic sires, and to every political elder and 



dorser ! He cannot be found. 

Select by lot a given number of political or- 



* " Parties are necessary to a country. They 
make men love their country. They make them - .• <• ■ i • o. . •" iq'tc 

forget selfishness, and inculcate patriotism."— ed, in every county jn this btate, m l^S/b; 



associate who gave them the first recogni- 
tion and summons in the Jeffersonian clubs 
of their native district. 

Undoubtedly, if we had had Jeffersonian 
clubs, organized as is the one here represent- 



California, despite all the ballot-box lifting 
n San Francisco, we would have rolled up ten 



Horatio Seymour. 

" It is true that jjarties are necessary. Noth- 
ing can be done, even in bringing public opin- 
ion to bear on affairs, unless men act together, 
vote together, come together to agree upon cer- 
tain priuciiiles. It is true, also, that there is 
such a thing as unselfish adherence to a partj', in 

the honest conviction that its success will pro- ^ ■ • t • ■ j -ci -^ 

mote the welfare of the country."- William CuU ■"'ere successful m Louisiana ana I? loriaa. 
ten Bryant. With such reflection, which is unavoidable 



thousand Democratic majority for the count- 
ed-out President-Elect, Samuel J. Tilden, of 
New York. Then would have been extend- 
ed to Mississippi and North Carolina a class 
of Radical maneuveres similar to those that 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



13 



at this moment, let us proceed to glance at 
one or two points in tbeliislory of tiie canvass 
in the " disputed States." We will take up 
for briefest consideration matters which do 
not admit of reasonable dispute before any or- 
dinarily well-informed meeting of American 
citizens. We may notice some matters that 
have not heretofore received the emphasis 
that is due, even in a concise consideration of 
the main facts. 

In the midst of the campaign a call was 
sent up from two of the Soutliern States — 
South Carolina and Louisiana — for tlie inter- 
vention of the Federal Government against 
"alleged acts of insurrection." Examined 
under the light of precedent, the call for 
troops did not in either case justify the send- 
ing. 

The troops being called for and sent under 
the interpretations of the Attorney General of 
the United States, congratulat'ions poured 
into the President's office from Democraticas 
well as Republican sources. Leading Demo- 
cratic journalists, who liad recently given 
special personal attention to the condition of 
affairs in South Carolina and Louisiana, dif- 
fered in opinion with prominent Democratic 
statesmen of the East respecting this very 
matter. And this point was made by the for- 
mer, in conspicuous and telling paragraphs : 
When the election shall have taken place in 
South Carolina and Louisiana, whatever may 
be the result, it never can be claimed with 
any show of decency that the Republicans 
were intimidated in either of those States. 
And the leading Republican journalists of the 
country assented to that statement and prop- 
ositiou. 

These troops were stationed at all points 
designated upon the map by the managers for 
the Radical party in the States of South Car- 
olina and Louisiana. Tiiere was no com- 
plaint of inadequacy in the number of the sol- 
diers that were dispatched by President Grant 
to the States we have mentioned. 

In addition, in the State of Louisiana, the 
Radical United States Marshal had full 
license and authority to ajjpoint as many dep- 
uties as he deemed nece.ssary or expedient. 

The Radical Governor of South Carolina 
publicly and repeatedly boasted that with the 
aid which he had obtained from the general 
government, alaige Radical majority for him- 
self and for the electors of Rutherford B. 
Hayes might be siiid to be absolutely guaran- 
teed. I give the substance, and I believe I 
recite the words of Governor Chamberlain, 
of South Carolina. 

Now, without going one step further on the 
unquestioned record, where is the man of ordi 
nary intelligence and the slightest claim to a 
character for honesty, who w ill stand up be- 
fore the audiences of 1877 and assert that the 
stories of intimidation in South Carolina and 
Louisiana, brought np since November 7, 
187(1, from the fei'tile shallows of Radical in- 
vention, have any possible basis in truth? If 
the whole review stopped here, what ought 
inevitably to be the conclusion and the ver- 
dict of rational men ? 

But we have other general testimony, 
which takes in the whole scope for conscien- 
tious doubt in the premises. 

When Governor Chamberlain of South 
Carolina announced that there was a reign of 
teri'orism throughout that State, every lead- 
ing clergyman in that commonwealth, includ- 
ing the Roman Catholic and the Episcopal 
and the Methodist Bisliops, voluntarily signed 



a protest against the gubernatorial proclama- 
tion to which I have referred — stating in ef- 
fect that the Governor did not speak the 
truth, and that the alleged terrorism did not 
exist. In the State of Louisiana, immediate- 
ly after the report was made by the Jolin 
Sherman committee of liars, every leading 
clergyman in the city of New Orleans and 
adjacent parishes, including the Bishops of 
the Catholic and Episcopal and Methodist 
denominations, voluntarily prepared and sign- 
ed a statement in which one important por- 
tion of the Sherman report was challenged 
and denied. And in this statement these 
clergymen united in declaring before the 
world that if the Radical carpet-baggers 
would desist from their devilish work of ex- 
citing the colored people to suspicion, and 
to acts of hostility against their old white mas- 
ters, a perfect peace would speedily follow 
and be established throughout that common- 
wealth. 

Look at this for one moment. Suppose that 
Aaron A. Sargent and Newton Booth and 
Frank Page should rise in their places in the 
national Legislature at Washington, on the 
same day, and announce that there was a reign 
of terrorism in the State of California; stating 
that the cause of this unhappy condition of 
affairs was owing to " democratic bull-doz- 
ing" in the principal cities and towns of Cal- 
ifornia ; stating, if you please, that the begin- 
ning of this unhappy condition of affairs was 
to be traced to imprudent executive interfer- 
ence and suppression in the city of Placer- 
ville ; where a man by the name of Blanchard, 
with two or three other members of the same 
church, and one colored boy of seventeen 
years of age and not quite an idiot, undertook 
to give vent to their religious indignation and 
the spirit of moral horror with which thev had 
been inoculated by the simple process of re- 
ceiving letters from Senator Booth and Rep- 
resentative Page, — concerning the counting of 
the Cronin vote. It had been attempted to 
hold a public meeting in Placerville, whereat 
a man by the name of Blanchard and two or 
three other members of the same church and 
a negro boy of seventeen or thereabouts, not 
quite an idiot, proposed to pass a series of res- 
olutions denunciatory of Governor Grover of 
Oregon, for his reported action on the Electo- 
ral vote. Suppose Senators Sargent and Booth 
and Representative Frank Page should on the 
same day at the Capitol, in the city of Wash- 
ington, rise and set forth the above as a state- 
ment of fact ; and then should proceed to say 
that the G ivernor of the State had ordered 
out the troops, with General McComb at their 
head — displaying twenty-one feathers in his 
hat — to prevent and suppress the intended re- 
ligious indignation meeting at Placerville, 
proposed by a man by the name of Blanchard 
with two or three other members of the 
same church, and a negro boy who was not 
quite an idiot. Suppose Sargent and Booth 
and Page should rise in their places in the 
national Legislature, on the same day, and 
represent that from this beginning, popular 
dissatisfaction and dissension had spread all 
over the State : and that it had then been dis- 
covered that every Democrat was a member 
of a military league, and was armed and equip- 
ped as the law directs that military men 
should be. Suppose Sargent and Booth and 
Page should represent that the ultimate out- 
come of this excitement was a perfect reign 
of terror from Modoc to San Diego, from the 
Mendocino lighthouse to the Colorado point- 



14 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



ing end of the Southern Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany's embankments. Suppose tliis outline 
should be filled in with details of outrages 
and tragedies in three score towns and villaites 
in California. Suppose it should be repre- 
sented that the lath-.ind-plaster castles of Le- 
laud Stanford and Mark Hopkins were in 
dantrer of the tori-h from some villains in a 
mob that was surging on Russian Hill in San 
Francisco, and demanding a reduction of fare 
on the Oakland ferry. Fill in the picture 
with innumerable fitting incidents, danyjera 
and threateuings. Suppose that you sat in 
the gallery of the U. S. Senate, and heard 
this acconnt as it was delivered at Washing- 
ington. Suppose that immediat'»ly after you 
had listened to such a report, you read a coni- 
pletelv authenticated telegraphic dispatch 
from California, signed by Bisliops Aleuiany 
and Kip and Amat and O'Connell and Wing- 
tield and Peck, and by the leading clerfrymen 
of the State, denying in whole and in part 
the statements — of tlie character indicated — 
made by Senators Sargent and Booth and 
Representative Page : Which statement would 
you believe, and what would be your opinion 
under such circumstances, as to the veracity 
of our United States Senators and Mr. Leland 
Stanford's favorite Congi-esfional flunkey ? 

Go down to Louisiana I You know, and 
every man, woman and child among you 
knows, that the Bishops of the Roman Catho- 
lic and Episcopal and Methodist churches in 
that State, have regular and frequent and in- 
timate correspondence with representative 
clergymen in every parish of Louisiana. And 
wheii these men, who have been consecrated 
in the highest ecclesiastical chairs, declare that 
an important portion of the John Sherman 
report is an unmitigated libel — yiatuitous and 
infernal — whose testimony are we to take ? 

There were in certain parishes of Louisiana 
a given number of duly registered citizens. 
Within the councils of the local government 
as well as under the advice of outside party 
managers, a sewing machine circular' was oi-- 
dered to be sent tiirontth the post-office to the 
address of a large number of these qualified 
voters. In every case where the circul.irs 
were uncalled for, or not taken out of the 
post-office box, non-residence was adjmlged. 
This is the statement as it comes from the 
Radical managers themselves. But under 
this artifice almost every registered Democrat 
addressed is said to have been disfranchised, — 
whether he received and responded to the 
sewing machine card, or net;lected or failed 
to take it from the carrier oi- the office. 

Prior to the election, the Governor of Flor- 
ida congratulated his people upon the perfect 
peace and the absolute freedom that existed 
throughout that State; and yet even there it 
was sought, after the electoral vote had been 
taken, to raise the cry of intimidation ! 

Hon. William J. Purman, Republican Con- 
gressman from Florida, stated on the floor of 
the House, Tuesday, Feb. 13th, 1677, that, 
"It is a fact, sir, which I cannot stand upon 
this tioor and deny, and which every man, 
woman and child in my Srate knows, that 
Florida was lost by the Republican party in 
the late election, arrd that the Democratic 
Governor, and the Tilden Electors were truly 
elected." Mr. Purman continued, by saying: 
" I make this declar.ition under the most sol- 
emn sense of public duty, and from an irresist- 
ible feeling of obligation to the people of iny 
State, who have a right to expect ttrat how- 
ever partisan their represeuiaiive may be in 



his political faith, he should at least on ques- 
tions of public fact be an honest man. But, 
sir, I would not be understood in making this 
declaration as laying claim to any unusrral 
amount of honesty or conscience, but I only 
assert my knowledjje of the facts. 1 love the 
pr'irrciples of the Republican party, and for 
their sake have been singed by the fires of 
martyrdom, * * * but I cainiot return 
to my State and look my constituency in the 
face, if, standing upon this floor and in the 
presence of the American people, anxiousand 
entitled to know the whole truth concerning 
this dangerous presidential issue, I shrink 
from the responsibility of doing justice to my 
State, and defendinif her lionest political vic- 
tory against the willful perversion of a bold, 
dishonest and unscrupulous State canvassing 
board. Should my Democratic coUeaj^ue in 
this House introduce a resolution here declar- 
ing that the St. John's River had its rise in 
the southern porti(>n of our State, flowed 
northward for hundr-eds of miles, and emptied 
its waters into the Atlantic Ocean, I would 
be compelled to support the affir-matiori of the 
resolution, for the reason that I would know 
the statement to be true, beiirg personally ac- 
quairrted with the geogr-aphy of that country. 
Therefore, for like reason, am I compelled to 
give assent to any declarations wliich have 
been or may be made upon this floor-, that the 
Tilden electors were truly elected in Florida, 
and that only by " ways that are dark," and 
tricks that iii tliis case have not proved to be 
in vain, were those electors, and a maiiuiiy 
of the people of the United States, defrauded 
out of their fair and lawful victory. But facts 
plainly expressed carry with them their own 
just weight, while juggleiy performed with a 
number of facts only increases the task of ex- 
planation, without'changiug their character 
or relative weitihf.'' 

The dailv Florida Union, of Fr-iday, De- 
cember ~'iith, IS76, the leading Republican 
paper in the State of Florida, published the 
followintf : 

'• If Marcellus L. Stearns was fairly and 
honestly defeated in the recent election, then, 
so far as the electoral vote of Florida is con- 
cerned, it belongs to Samuel J. Tilden. There 
is no getting over or around this fact." 

The Radical bosses have obtained another 
four years' lease of Federal authority by 
means that fully justify all that has passed 
into common speech concerniirg them. And 
they do say that they are entrenched in nation- 
al power for a generation ; and so in very 
truth they are, if the people do not rise and 
rebuke and overthrow, according as oppor- 
tunity from this day for-th is vouchsafed. 
Let us not disguise t'he fact or postpone our 
efforts. If, during the present and the com- 
ing year the elections in the various States in 
the Union do not show an unmistakable vote 
of censure against the method by which ihis 
Administration came into ruling position— and 
show this by an immense aggregate popular 
majority — it will appear that the bold aird un- 
scrupulous men who have seated a fraudulent 
President did not make a false estimate of the 
intelligence and sense of justice in the breasts 
of the masses of our people. 

There is a stand-point for morning reflec- 
tions from which one may be disposed to 
doubt the possibility of such a future success 
as the Radical managers profess to expect ; 
notwithstanding the chances supposed to be 
slumbering in a " policy " that may sacrifice 
all of consistency, all of former " principles," 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



15 



and sometliing of their former practices, to 
gain or recover favor with the people. A inil- 
lion majority in the wiiite vote, a plurality 
against the Returning Board candidate of 
^50,0011 ballois, and an absolute majority over 
all for the Democratic nominee of not less 
than 160,000 votes, would seem, under any 
heavens but ihose of brii,ss, to leave no linger- 
ing shadow of a sliade of a color of prospect 
for another national success in behalf of the 
Conspirators. 

We see plainly already that some of their 
strong reliances are on a lavish expenditure 
of money for jobbers, who are couiing from 
the four quarters of the countiy with a pur- 
pose, under the name of " internal improve- 
ments in the South," to rake the National 
Treasury ; and on tempting offers of official 
stations to influential men in the Southern 
States who have up to date been identified 
with the Democratic party. But I think and 
submit, that before all, and above all, the Con- 
spirators place confidence, for their outlook, 
on the disheartenuient of incorruptible, lead- 
ing men tbrougliout the Union, and the su- 
pineness of multitudes who, without any par- 
ticular self-consciousuess of discouragement, 
are yet undera spell of indifl'erence, — as though 
they were on the fabled enchanted ground of 
the Leopards, where the victims could neither 
cry out nor muster faculties of will to offer 
resistiince. The parlur and cloak-ioom and 
kitchen cabinet counsellois of his fi audulency 
hope that these classes of men will refuse or 
neglect, <lurinf; the next two year^^ to partic- 
ipate actively in the political affairs of their 
neighboihood or State. And after two years, 
it will be too late ! too late ! Alas, alas I too 
late ! Verdicts will then lie said to have been 
received from polled juries, approving deeds 
done and commending any promulgated or 
pretended programme- for the reuminder of 
the Adiniuisiration term. And although the 
sleeping, or slothful, or hesitating Democrats 
tbereafiei- rally and come stoutly to the front, 
their numbers and attracting strength will 
be more than counterbalanced by ihe acces- 
sions to the Radical ranks of many men of 
many minds, once and now with us, who 
will judge, and change their allegiance, on 
account of the popular decision, so asserted 
to have been rendered. 

Now it is, in considering this last described 
ground of reliance for future victory and con- 
tinued power ill Radical hands, that we have 
especial cause for thankfulness and cheering 
sentences in the presence of the local Demo- 
cratic clubs ot California ; beginning with the 
first thoroughly prepared working association 
of the class — the Jeffersouian Clubs of El 
Dor.ido County. 

For one, I have no fears of the openly and 
much-talked-of bribery of the Democracy of 
the South, by a few railroad bond appropria- 
tions, or a score of Pj'esidentially endorsed 
schemes for river and harbor and canal and 
public building iinpiovements. The men who 
fought four years for ihe cause of the Confed- 
eracy, Hiid made all possible sacrifice there- 
for, are not going to sell their Inuior or trade 
off their political manhood for a mess of pot- 
tage. It IS not necessary to say, every morn- 
ing, noon and night, that the Democratic 
Senators and Representatives from the South 
won't " bargain " on matters of National right 
and propriety. Leave such vindicatory 
speech to the courtiers of Rutherford 15, 
Hayes. 

1 deprecate here and elsewhere every kind 



of secret, oath-bound political society in a Re- 
public, in time of peace. I care not what is 
the specified olyect of such societies. They 
are anti-Republican, and full of danger to our 
country. Locully, they are usually brought 
under the substantially controlling direction 
of unprincipled old bilks, who are paid for 
the votes they can eventually bring out of 
them, or through them, in support of the 
monopolists' party. I am jubilant over the 
exhibition of discipline and unanimity in such 
an open political association as that in which 
you are enrolled. 

Here you should have — here you will have 
an effective distributing and focalizing busi- 
ness and power. It is needed ; it is every way 
to be commended. 

Look back a little. Our thoroughly trust- 
worthy among the trusted leaders of the Dem- 
ocratic party in the East — reliable in every 
point of integrity andability — those who did not 
either wittingly by or mistake give our cause 
away — called out during the last five months 
for a public expression of sentiment from the 
prominent "Republicans" who declared in 
private conversations that Tilden ought to be 
inaugurated. An open expression of hostility 
to the plans of the Conspirators at Washing- 
ton was solicited. Our campaign captain and 
elected President, in the modest way that be- 
came him, recommended that mass-meetings 
be held in every city in the nation, at which 
the sentiment of the people on the result of 
the election should be formally and emphatic- 
ally made known. But his words of recom- 
mendation were only half reported to the 
country, and speedily smothered by the cun- 
ning of the Radical managers, acting in and 
through the Associated Press Bureau and the 
Western Union Telegraph agencies. With 
the aid of most unwise Democratic lieuten- 
ants, who seemed to be eventually brought 
completely under the influence of the serpents 
of Radicalism, [how they must repent their 
folly ! I the mass-meetings that were held in 
some of the central Stales, in obedience to 
the advice noted, were, in one wav and an- 
other, made to appear as of a limid'and tem- 
porizing character ; and assemblages of peo- 
ple who believed the Democratic candidates 
duly elected that were arranged to fie held iu 
this State, and elsewhere, were virtually sup- 
pressed. In San Francisco, prominent" Re- 
pulilicans" would have acted as officers of a 
mass-meeting called to demand the inangura- 
tioii of Samuel J. Tilden ; and at one time pro- 
vision was made for a rally of the people, 
with this purpose, at which Hon. E. D. Saw- 
yer would have presided, and Judge O. H. 
Pratt would have presented the residuiions. 
If there had been such a meeting held in San 
Francisco in December, or the early part of 
January last, Samuel J. lildenwould have 
been President of the United States. Fifty 
thousand citizens would have answered to a 
summons to attend — from San Francisco and 
the adjacent localiies — and the voice of the 
people, so ascertained at one time, would have 
been almost as the voice of one man in de- 
manding the iuauguration of the candidate 
who had plainly been chosen Chief Executive 
of the Nation— Samuel J. 'lildeii, of New 
York. The direct and reflex action of such a 
gathering would have been tremendoua, iu 
arousing the honest citizens of the East.* 

* It was represented in the East, by the va- 
rious "Independent" news agencies of Zach 
Chandler, Jay Gould & Co., that Calif ornians 



16 



THE POLITICAL RETKOSPECT. 



O, it was a cruel spectacle! " Contjress 
looking at the people aud the people looking 
at Congress "—each watching the other ! lu 
the midst of the agony of disgust provoked 
by the picture, reminding some of us, I am 
sure, of those familiar occasions when " Mr. 
Pickwick looked at Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Snod- 
grass looked at Mr. Winkle, Mr. Winkle 
looked at Mr. Tupman, Jlr. Tupuian looked 
at Mr. Pickwick, aud then they all looked at 
each other ! " 

"Waiting for the 'Eepublicaus ' to enter 
disclaimers and protests ? " Why, if there 
had been a concert of action on the part of 
the Democrats, in obedience to the advice for 
mass-meeting demonstrations in every State, 
the " liepnblicaus" would have come in with 
us at our first, second aud subsequent gather- 
ings b}' the tens of thousands. More than 
one hundred influential " Republicans" of this 
State — men of prominence in their respect- 
ive localities — have said to me that thej were 
surprised and chagrined at the stupidity— as 
they termed it — of the Democracy of Cali- 
fornia, in the matter of neglecting to call 
such assemblages as we have been consider- 
ing. It may be that the gentlemen in our 
party, in this State, who labored most effect- 
ively to maintain that "masterly quiet" in- 
sisted upon by our San Francisco twin 
" Independent" papers, will have their appro- 
priate reward of retirement from party lead- 
ership. We shall see ? 

All is : that it is the ever-to-be -lamented 
record, that it came to pass that eventually 
the judicious and necessary advice and rec- 
ommendation of the master mind was set at 
nought ; and Democratic division generals 
in California, who did not mean to be in 
complicity with those who were ready, on 
grounds of jealousy or revenge, or for prom- 
ises of future "support" by Eepublican de- 
tachments, to give us away, were smitten 
with the simples (this is the charitable way 
to account for the matter,) and the time for 
effective and irresistible demand by the peo- 
ple for the people, in behalf of a jjeople's choice 
for a President, slipped away! 

The Western tuion Telegraph Company 
and its Associated Press News Bureau, and 
their organs, the Independent Press— being 
as well the organs of every other monopolv 
that will pay them their price— insisted, from 
day to day, that the people ought not to say a 
word, or lisp a syllable, in a public meeting, 
in regard to the openly threatened usurpation 
of the highest office in the nation, with all its 
power and prestige ; that all protesting 
speech was foolish, all demanding language 
wicked ; even declaring that all criticising 
suggestions against the doings and purposes 
of the Senators and Representatives aud mon- 
opoly chiefs who were avowedly at work car- 
rying out a Presidency-stealing" job, was un- 
becoming, and altogether to be deprecated by 

were ' ' almost unanimous " in " demanding 
peace at any price," and that if the vote was re- 
taken, Hayes would receive ten times his re- 
corded majority in the State ! After the inaugu- 
ration of Hayes, one of the most venal of the 
"Independent" papers in San Francisco— the 
BuUeHn—sa.id in substance that " undoubtedly a 
majority of the people are now in favor of 
Hayes ! " Day after day, during the four 
months of "anxiety," telegraphic despatches 
from California to the Eastern Press declared " a 
rising sentiment in favor of Hayes' inaugura- 
tion!" Were not the people outrageously mis- 
represented and deceived ? 



everybody. And garbled extracts from 
Eastern Democratic pnpers were circulated 
by telegraph, calculated to convey the same 
opinion and injunction. 

So the beginning that was actually made 
for a decent and proper, and as it must have 
proved, a conquering demand for the inaugu- 
ration of the President-elect — a beginning 
that was recorded in Indiana and Illinois and 
Missouri— was a fit beginning that had short 
course and was not glorified ; the end coming 
suddenly, under a fog-bank thrown up from 
the sewers of Radicalism — a most lame and 
impotent conclusion for a splendid patriotic 
commencement of agitation and assertion in 
behalf of the people's sovereign right in this 
Republic of ours ! 

" O, that mine eyes were water and my 
head were a fountain of tears! " 

After it became evident that this suppress- 
ing policy would prevail, many discrnninat- 
ing persons were without wonder for all the 
easy legerdmain which resulted in officially 
inviting the fraud from Fremont, Ohio, to 
come to Washington, accept the hospitalities 
of the eulogist of the Louisiana Returning 
Board, "walk to church" ; and before the 
sun-shining hour appointed for the inaugura- 
tion of any honestly chosen executive, take 
that which was not his own, and swear to it, 
— on a Sunday night, in the White House, a 
few minutes before John Sherman for the 
first time put him as a pretty little pious 
"President" in his pretty little stolen trundle 
bed. 

You know, my friends, that to-day the Rad- 
ical Dukes and Marquises do banquet over 
the success of their management in this im- 
portant particular, this essential department 
of their Conspiracy: — because they and their 
immediate aid-de-canipspi-evailed"upou many 
of our field marslials to discourage and, 
oftentimes, as far as possible to forbid the 
advertising of public meetings, at which the 
programme would have included resolutions 
insisting on the inauguration of the Presi- 
dent elect, and speeches urging the unani- 
mous signature to articles of organization 
adapted to an ultimate conditional physical 
support for the letter and the spirit of the 
resolutions. So was lost the people's appeal 
and demand. So passed the opportunity for 
the people to make known that sentiment 
which undoubtedly at one time existed, in in- 
tense military form and force, within the 
breasts of at least six millions of the most 
stalwart men among the number of the vot- 
ers of this country : ready to sing out in pub- 
lic halls or, if need be, on the tented field: 

Shall not the man the people chose sit in the 

ruler's chair ? 
Shall any traitors hope to place another person 

there ? 
Let knaves of every grade and school of such a 

scheme beware ! 
For Tilden of the Empire State and Hendricks 

of the West 
Shall take the seats assigned to them by popu- 
lar behest. 
And if the Chandlers, Goulds and Grants 

their threatened programme try, 
And think to cheat with tricks of "count, and 

then with arms defy. 
Six thousand thousand citizens " will know the 

reason why!" 

From the cause dwelt upon, I know that 
many are depressed beyond all description. 
Xot at the banditti bravery of the Mortons 
and Chandlers and Goulds, not so much at 
the insulting conduct of the chief magistrate 



THE POLITICAL RETIIOSPECT. 



17 



who ordered the regular army and the ma- 
rines to Washington with a tliinly ditiguised 
intention of brow beating, intimidaliug, or 
incarcerating tlie majority in the House of 
Eepresentatives; not because of the magpie 
chattering of tlie A. A. Sargents and tlie Eu- 
gene Hales, and the other unclean birds and 
creeping things — of the same date and class 
in creation— that belong to the Kadical camp, 
and now and then, for a diversion, are al- 
lowed to obtrusively appear in the front of a 
general exhibition ; — not because of any or 
all of these provoking or nauseating facts or 
theatricals — but because of the enforced in- 
action and the compelled silence of the masses 
at the opportune moment of time. 

Such an organization as the one whose 
gi'and county meeting you hold to-night, will 
dissipate the faint-heartedness of hundreds 
of Democrats in Ei Dorado County, — I verily 
believe. Similar organizations throughout 
the State would lift to a proper level of ex- 
pectation and corresponding personal resolu- 
tion and energy tens of thousands of voters, 
who by theif knowledge and conscience, as 
made known to their neighbors and friends 
to-night, or yesterday, or but a little while 
ago, belong for the first year in their lives to 
the Democratic Party. 

How the suggestions crowd in as one at- 
tempts to outline an address for an occasion 
like the present. Many things are pressing 
for mention: for edification, for indoctiiua- 
tion, for arming, for stimulants to a vigilant 
and ceaseless warfare. 

I can suppose myself a member of such a 
club as this, in the city of Placerville ; and 
imagine that in their semi-monthly meetings 
there are half hours set apart for strictly in- 
structive reading. 

Suppose that we hear read at one of our 
first meetings in the nionth of May, the re- 
port of the committee that went to New Or- 
leans at the request of the chairman of the 
Democratic national committee. We have 
all read it for ourselves ; but it will bear — 
nay, it requires — re-reading now. Well de- 
livered, impressively recited, as it ought to 
be in one of our meetings, it will occupy 
about one-half hour of time. It is indeed 
worthy of a reading where there shall be a 
union of minds, simultaneous, upon its para- 
graphs. And I can conjecture that after its 
reading, specially prepared copies will be dis- 
tributed among the listening people : to pro- 
vide for home reference and re-perusal and 
separate neighborhood circulation. 

Why, my friends : among the statements 
which evince desperate anxiety to escape 
from under the rising force and flame of pub- 
lic sentiment, I have heaid this credited to 
the chief Conspirators: That the fraudulent 
President or his cabinet dry-nurses have ex- 
pectations that ex Senator Trumbull and ex- 
Governor Palmer and ex- Congressman Ju- 
lian will be won over — or as they phrased it, 
"won back" — to the ranks of the Radical 
organization. And hearing this, I retiied to 
read the conclusion of this identical report, 
signed by these men ; in which they say : 

" It is an admitted fact that Mr. Tilden has 
received a majority of a quarter of a million 
of the votes at the recent election. This 
majority is ready and willing to submit to the 
minority w'hen constitutionally entitled to de- 
mand such submission, but is unwilling that 
by an arbitrary and false declaration of votes 
in Louisiana, the minority shall usurp the 
power. With the law and such facts before 



us as have been disclosed by the action of 
the Returning Board, we do n:)t hesitate to 
declare that its proceedings, as witnessed by 
us, were partial and unfair, and that the re- 
sult it has announced is arbitrarj', and en- 
titled to no respect whatever. Fifteen years 
ago, when Fort Sumter was tired upon by 
men who sought the destruction of the Union 
a million of patriots, without regard to 
party affiliations, sprang up to its defense ; 
will the same patriotic citizens now sit idly 
by and see a representative government 
overthrown liv usurpation and fraud ? Shall 
the will of -JO.'OOO 000 of people, coustitutiou- 
ally expressed, be thwarted by the corrupt, 
arbitrary and illegal action of an illegally 
constituted Returning Board in Lousiana, 
whose wrongful action heretofore is in aU 
respects similar to its present action, and has 
been condemned by all parties?" 

It is a powerful document. It was pre- 
pared by men who spoke of that which they 
did know and testified to that which they had 
seen. And their account and their judgment 
of these matters shall pass into the folios of 
undisputed history. Let it be read before as 
—this first Louisiana report — by one of your 
boys ; let it, and the statesman-like rhetoric of 
its authors and their associates published in 
different places during the past five months, 
become the store-house of language from 
which our children shall select their patriotic 
declamations at exhibition displays of their 
historical knowledge and oratorical art. 

At another meeting of the Jefiersonian 
Club there may he read by some of your ac- 
complished elocutionists, judiciously made ex- 
tracts from the lengthy and exhaustive report 
of the House Committee which went down to 
Louisiana. Perhaps an hour will be greatly 
improved and enjoyed with such a reading ; 
repaying you for all your time and attention ; 
giving lively zest to your re-reading of one 
of the printed copies of Morrison's Statement, 
that should then be distributed for your own 
and your neighbors' librarj'. 

At another meeting of the Jeffersoniaa 
Club, in Placerville, or in Coloma, or in 
Georgetown, the report of Congressman 
Thompson on the Election in Florida would 
furnish attractive and entertaining text for 
reading. It is one of the best specimens of 
direct statement, and clear, practical and logi- 
cal deductions, that I have ever taken to my 
memory. And when you know that its au- 
thor, the Hon. Charles P. Thompson, of Mas- 
sachusetts, has been hitherto regarded by his 
fellow Congressmen as one of the most con- 
servative Democrats in the lower House, and 
has always been considered to be one of the 
most cautious of meu by his associates and ac- 
quaintances at home, since the day when he 
joined our national party, you will have the 
correct f)asisfor appreciating the intense vigor 
of his characterization of the action of the 
Eeturning Board of the Orange Grove State. 
According to a life-long reputation, he is one 
of the most moderate ana conservative of 
men. And yet such, in his judgment, was the 
enormity of the Conspiracy of the Chandler 
and Morton band, that, at the close of the last 
session, he was one of the foreiuost Congress- 
men in the company of those who attempted 
to defeat, by every species of legitimate par- 
liamentary tactics, the consummation of the 
Electoral Commis^ion Swindle. Every man 
in old Massachusetts who knows Congress- 
man Thompson will tell you, that for probity 
of character, for well tempered devotion to 



18 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



everything Uiat is worthy and just and lovely 
m in community affairs and intercourse, he is 
without superior in tlie Commonwealth. 
Thank Heaven for such a man from New 
England in the last Congress of this country ! 
My own native New England ! For which I 
have cried out in bitterness of shame, because 
of the Blaines that have come there to dis- 
honor and disgrace, because of tlie piping 
Hales, and the lying Hoais, and the brutiil 
Butlers, and the craw-tishing Dawes, and 
the railroad Rollinses, and tlie high-falutin' 
Hawleys. Come now: despite the Cant 
that has seemed to be fastened on the nation 
by the usurper and his chaplains, I will even 
dare to believe that you will join me in declar- 
ing that a devout thanksgiving is due for such 
a Congressman as Charles P. Thompson, of 
New England ! — that New England which 
cast 289,000 votes on the 7th November last for 
the man whom a majority of the whole people 
and a constitutionally authorized Electoral 
College did proclaim President of the United 
States. Let the words of Congressman 
Thompson in this report on the Florida Elect- 
oral issue be the page for an evening's read- 
ing here. And I beg you, see to it that from 
here, and from eveiy other Jeffersonian Club 
in your county, bis report goes forth into all 
your mining "camps and your vineyard vil- 
lages ; bearing upon it your special invitation 
for a full and candid reading.* 



* Presiding Justice Clifford, of the Electoral 
Commission, in his decision in the Florida case, 
said : 

" Neither the public nor the citizens have any 
power to defeat the machiuatious of fraud, per- 
jury, and forgery, if the measures adopted in 
this case [by the Democrats of Florida] are held 
ineffectual and insufficient." 
Mr. Justice Field, in the same case, said : 
" The country may submit to the result, but 
it will never cease to regard our action as un- 
just in itself, and as calculated lo sap the founda- 
tions of public morality." 

No one of the Justices in the Commission 
■ dared to say or write that Florida was not re- 
corded for the "Republican" Electoral ticket 
by "fraud, perjury, and forgery"; and yet A. 
A. Sargent declared in the U.S. Senate — and 
even declares in his hotel in San Francisco— 
that the vote of Florida was honestly given to 
Rutherford B. Hayes ! The fact is, these Radical 
managers imagine that because Ha.ves has ac- 
knowledged Hampton and Nichols, all the sins 
of the Conspiracy are or will be forgotten or 
forgiven by the people. The Radical managers 
believe that the masses of the people do not 
now care a straw if the Florida vote was stolen 
by " fraud, perjury, and forgery," in a manner 
" calculated to sap the foundations of public 
morality." And by instructing or encouraging 
Ben Wade, and men of his stripe, to go on the 
stage and howl at his Fraudulency, and by in- 
structing all the Radicals and " Independent " 
city dailies to "moralize" against old Ben, 
they expect to make tens if not hundreds of 
thousands of good people oblivious of the facts, 
and the example referred to by Justices Clifford 
and Field in the opinions quoted. Will they 
succeed? That is their "game." Since this 
speech was delivered, Hampton and Nichols 
have been "recognized," and Jim Blaine has 
given sigus of another farcical anti-administra- 
tion demonstration in the U. S. Senate: the farce 
to "come off" when Congress meets, prouirfed 
the scolding letters and speeches of Ben Wade 
& Co. shall not have had the sufficient intended 
bamboozling effect on the ijopular mind 1 

(As for Wendell Phillips, he can be relied upon 
to scold any Administration that yields in any 
degree or for any purpose to a demand for the 
rights of the people of the Southern States.) 



Ah, these Conspirators shake their hands in 
d<^ri8ion and shout : " What are you going to 
do about it?" So said Boss Tweed ; until 
the reformer and the student in Grammercy 
Park produced the figures, from the intricate 
tables of rascality, which called for and justi- 
fied the warrant that put the arch robber of 
New York under prison discipline on Black- 
welTs Island. " All the tirades of the daily 
press "—says the Professor of political econo- 
my in Yale College — "against Boss Tweed 
and bis associates, would have had no more 
effect upon him or them than the sprinkling 
of an April shower on the back of a rhinoce- 
ros, if Scimuel J. Tilden had not sat himself 
down and studied out a specific indictment. 
The people of New York and of the United 
Slates are indebted to one man only for a 
wholesome personal answer to the sneering 
inquiry of Boss Tweed, ' What are yon going 
to do about it ? ' The name of that man is 
Samuel J. Tilden." When I shall again be 
asked, in terms or in substance, "What are 
the Democrats going to do about it? " I shiill 
point them to a model organization in the 
mountains, where a work of popular instruc- 
tion and proper paity discipline has been com- 
menced and is going on ; making sure, in one 
section of the State at least, a verdict all suf- 
ficient in response to the irony and the insult 
of the political Conspirators and the national 
plunderers in San Fi-ancisco and in Washing- 
ton. 

And one night, even if it be an evening 
when there is much business, you may well 
spare the timetohear read the speech of an hon- 
est ■' Republican " Congressman from Alassa- 
chusetrs.oH thesuhjectof the Louisiana count. 
I do not refer to President Seelye of Amherst, 
whose remarks in refusing to sanction the 
Louisiana count were evidently intended to 
please both sides, and principally served to 
disclo.-^e the fact that he is a good representa- 
tive of tluit mairowless faction of so-called 
statesmen in every common wealtli, who de- 
light to classify themselves as the Too-good- 
for-:iiiy-p;irty-atfiliation. I refer to the speech 
of Hon. Henry L Pierce of the Old Bay State. 
Read it ! For lie gives no uncertain sound in 
his direct allusions to the eight peijurersou the 
elecioriil commission. In that speech be says: 
" The rule which the Commission has laid 
down for the determination of this question 
is one which I cannot conscientiously en- 
dorse. * * * The most carefnl conserv- 
ator of State lights would never have object- 
ed to an examination by Congress, or by any 
other national authority, so far as to ascertain 
wliether the electors who sent their votes 
here to ()e counted had been chosen and were 
qiirilitied in the manner provided by the Con- 
stitution and laws of their Stale and of the 
United States. * * * If these are not 
matters which the representatives of all the 
people, authorized by the Constitution to 
count the votes and declare the result, can 
inqnire into, then this Government stands on 
a veiy insecure foundation. I cannot give 

The Question remains : Is there to be judg- 
ment set U15 and executed against the Conspira- 
turs who, through " the machinations of fraud 
perjury, and forgery " stole the votes of Florida 
and Louisiana fi-oni Tilden and gave them to 
Hayes ? Or, are we to aid in " sapping the foun- 
dations of Public Morality," by sending back 
to the U. S. Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, associates und messengers in the Jay 
Gould, Zach Chandler, O. P, Morton and John 
Sherman Conspiracy ? 



THE POLITICAL RETKOSPECT. 



19 



my assent to any such declaration. It is con- 
trary to good goieriiinent ; it is contrary ts 
good morals ; it fends to ueaken the hold 
of the Government vpon the respect atul con- 
fidence of the people, and the party irhich 
gets office by its adoption will be a party 
founded on a principle dangerous to the per- 
petuity of the Government." 

And on one nifjlit— if not frequently — you 
■will, I trust, have a half hour dedicated to 
the public reading of the protest of the Demo- 
cratic Congressmen against tlie counting of 
the Louisiana vote for Hayes. 

And a half hour of another evening shall 
he devoted to the reading of the declaration — 
now on the imperishable record — of a large 
majority in the lower House in Congress and 
a large minority in the Senate of the United 
States, to the effect that according to the vote 
proved to have been cast by the people, the 
citizens of the United Stales in the constitu- 
tionally prescribed mode and manner did not 
choose Rutherford B.Hayes to be President 
of the United Stales, but did choose — with an 
added overwhelming popular majority — no 
other than Samuel J. Tildeu of New York. 
And this declaration, appropriately printed, 
should be framed and set upon the walls of 
every Jeffersonian club in the State of Cali- 
fornia. 

One night might be well spent in reading 
chapters from the biography of one of the 
greatest Jeffersonian statesmen now living — 
the Presidentelect of the United States — Sam- 
uel J. Tilden of New York. 

And one night, if not on many nights, there 
Bhould be reading from one of the many 
biographies of Thomas Jefferson of Monti- 
cello. 

On one evening it would be well if you 
should have discussed before you the subject 
of A Postal Telegraph. I wish I had the 
opportunity to do that service in the city of 
Placerville. 

The people of the United States should enjoy 
the benefits of the invention and the improve- 
ments iu electric telegraphy. It is strange 
beyond all computation, that an invention 
evidently intended as the common letter car- 
rier of the earth, should in this country be held 
in the clutch of a pitiless and rotten monop- 
oly. I ask you to study this subject for your- 
selves. 

There is no conllict with Jeffersonian prin- 
ciples in the proposition to establish a postal 
tCiegraph department. If we had a postal 
telegraph in this country, the " Independent 
Press " of San Francisco would no longer 
possess exclusive privileges in the receipt and 
publication of Easteiii telegraphic dispatches ; 
and you and I, if we were otherwise couipe- 
tent for the service, could establish a Demo- 
cratic daily in any city on this coast, with the 
same business prospect that is now possessed 
alone by the newspaper managers who will 
consent to be the creatures of the monopolies 
of the land. 

The tirst overland telegraph line, from Sac- 
ramento to Omaha, was absolutely paid for 
by subsidies from the national and State gov- 
ernments. Cyrus W. Field has said that the 
net earnings of the Overland Telegraph Com- 
pany during the first year of its operation 
amounted to more than the sum total of its cost. 
You can send a telegraphic dispatch of 
twenty words from one end of Great Britain 
to the other for a sixpence. When the lines 
in England and Scotland were purchased by 
the Government, the cost of a similar dispatch 



was three shillings, and the promise of a reduc- 
tion to the present rates was then popularly re- 
garded as an extravagant prophecy of cheap- 
ness. Instead of being an expense to the 
British Government over and above receipts, 
for all time — as was also prophesied — the in- 
come now exceeds the expenditures, and the 
convenience of the people has lieen sought 
and satisfied by thousands of miles of new 
lines, and an every way more skillful and reg- 
ular service. 

You can send a telegraphic dispatch across 
the Atlantic cable by the strength of a batterv 
concocted iu a lady's thimble. In the citv of 
Boston, for many years, the compound of 
acids, after it was exhausted for electric use, 
was sold for more than the original cost of 
the simples. 

These are but specimen facts, taken from 
an immense array, \\hich combine to make 
up and enhance this marvel of the age: the 
discovery and the invention and the cheap- 
ness of working, being marvelous, but the 
submission of the people to the extortions and 
other outrages of the Western Union Tele- 
graph Company, being the matter of suprem- 
est amazement. 

Competition will not cure the telegraph 
monopoly ; a postal telegraph affords the 
remedy — immediate, perfect and enduring. 

I give you only bints on this subject, "and 
C[uit it with reluctance.* 



•The same "argument" that protests against 
Government control and management of the 
telegraph is just as good for a plea in favor of 
abolishing our present Postoffice system, and 
leaving the public to be served, in the con- 
veying of letters and papers, by Senator Hanni- 
bal Hambliu's special clients.to wit; the Express 
Companies of ihe country. At the command of 
these Express Companies, (in which the Central 
Pacific Railroad monopolists are now larue 
owners) Senator Kamlin slyly slipped an amend- 
ment into the Postoffice Bill of 1874, which 
doubled the postage on occasional newspapers 
and magazines, merchandise samples, etc. News- 
paper postage, under the imperative demands of 
the people, expressed through their Democratic 
Representatives and Senators, was restored to 
former figures, by the succeeding Congress- 
though the restoring amendment was withheld 
to the very last moment. How much do you 
think the Express Companies would charge for 
postage, if the Postoffice Department of the 
United States was aboliohed ? Doubtless they 
would charge in the same proportion of extor- 
tion that is now suffered from the telegraph 
monopoly. 

By an Automatic Telegraph, 500 words a min- 
ute can be sent The telegraph monopolies sup. 
2)ress inventions; and try in all ways not to let 
the mass of the people know how much of a 
Cheap Convenience which belongs to the people, 
they— the telegraph monopolies— are holding 
from the people. " 

Jay Gould is trying to get control of the West- 
ern Union, and so he lets down the tariff a little 
on his few rattle-trap wires. There will be no 
adequate, permanent reformation in this busi- 
ness, except by a Postal Telegraph. We ought 
to be able to send all our business correspond- 
ence by telegraph at the rate of one cent a word 
as the maximum. That charge would /lay, under 
a Complete Government system of Postal Tele- 
graphy. Such a system would furnish employ- 
ment to tens of thousands of boys and girls, and 
men, now needing and seeking employment. By 
the aid of readily learned methods of cipher 
our communications by telegraph would be in- 
scrutably private. With a Postal Telegraph, 
every country newspaper, as well as every city 
daily, would be able to present its readers with 
the very latest news, in original dispatches, from 



20 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



My friends : when we reflect upon the 
comparative hick of organization in the Dem- 
ocratic party in tliis State, when we consider 
the immense advantage which the Adminis- 
trntion forces, strictly speaking, possessed in 
1876 throughout this State ; when we take 
into account the tremendous persuasive and 
oftentimes, and whenever necessary, coercive 
power of the railroad monopoly in this State, — 
with its 8,000 employees, and its uncounted 
dependents who are not on its regular rolls ; 
when the power of cooperating monopolies, 
national and local, are considered— the West- 
ern Union Telegi-aph Company, the Alaska 
Pur Seal Companj', and the like ; when we 
put our lowest figure for the contributions 
that came here from abroad for secret distri- 
bution where the sums would do the most 
good ; when we try to realize the etFect upon 
the minds of strauirers in our midst — and good 
men of little genei'al information who were 
accustomed to be spoon-fed by the editorials, — 
of our San Francisco " Independent Press" ; 
when we consider all these things, we may 
well be astonished that even the lifting of the 
ballot boxes in San Francisco and the ex- 
clianging therein of several thousand votes in 
favor of the Radical electors, was necessary 
to secure a majority in this State for the party 
of fraud — we may well break into exclama- 
tions of profound amazement, because the 
record of California for November, 1876, does 
not stand 27,000 majority for the Radical 
ticket, instead of 2,700. 

The Radical managers in this State repeat- 
edfi^ prophesied an eight-thousand majority 
for their ticket in San Francisco ; and un- 
questionably they expected fully that vote in 
their favor. They foretold 20,000 majority 
for the Hayes electors in the State ; and they 
confessed a sore disappointment ■ when the 
cipher for thousands was dropped from their 
tally. We have cause lor congratulations 
over the manifested character of the masses 
of our people — we have great reason for en- 
couragement — when we put aside our sack- 
cloth, and look the table of the 7th of Novem- 
ber squarely in the face. We must rise from 
the contemplation of the figures witli the con- 
viction that a better organization would have 
given the Democratic party a victory here, 
last fall, notwithstanding the immense lever- 
age of the Conspirators in their labor to con- 
trol and corrupt the voters of the common- 
wealth. 

You are the first to take practical action, 
founded I presume — at least in part — on such 
a review, or stimulated to some extent by 
such a retrospect. Though such organizations 
as are now proposed should always have been 
a characteristic of this State, let us even be 
glad if grievous experience has taught us the 
necessity. You have begun and continued in 
this work of organization from the new year 
time unto this day : and I know of no sugges- 
tion from without, other than the general 
provocation of the season, that has brought 
you to this work and aided you in the accom- 
plishments thus far — which are sufficiently 
indicated to me in this magnificent audience 
here to-night. 

But I am here to congratulate you. And I 
am here to say, as I look over your numbers, 
that you must have surprised yourselves by 
the success of your efforts, as it can he, in one 
sense, estimated tonight. 

I congratulate you ! You have taken the 

all p.irts of the country, at a nominal cost to the 
publisher. 



right name, I venture to declare ; not speak- 
ing with patronizing benediction, but in a 
spirit of respectful commendation. 

The name ! None otiier belongs so closely 
to your duties and your privileges. "Jef- 

FERSONIAN ! '■ 

Right now, of all other times, should the 
biography of Thomas Jefferson, be read by 
the voters, and especially by the young men 
of this country. Randall's biography with 
its copious notes is the most complete ; the 
history of his domestic life by his grand- 
daughter is the most fascinating ; the com- 
pendious story of his labors by Farton,is the 
most effective presentation of his invaluable 
services to his country, and, all things con- 
sidered, the preferable record for the perusal 
of the American citizen of 18/7. That life 
will present to you such parallels and 
suggestive approximations of events — read 
in the warm glow of your recollections 
of the Political deeds at Washington dur- 
ing the last few months — as will startle you 
with their instructive significance. The 
biographies of Thomas Jefferson should be 
upon your tables. There are chapters in hie 
life that deserve to be read and re-read in the 
Jeffersonian Clubs in this State between now 
and the days of active campaigning. 

We should be reminded that in the year 
1800 an effort was made to count in a rival 
candidate for the Presidency, by ways or with 
agreements that vv'ere not strictly honorable, 
— though bearing no proportionate relation to 
the enormous fraud which we have recently 
witnessed. The effort was made in the very 
presence of Jeflerson himself, as he sat in 
the chair of the Vice-President. An " Ex- 
pedient" was proposed which had something 
of the moral flavor that scents the operations 
of Morton and Chandler and John Sherman; 
and to that reference is made in one short par- 
agraph of the biography by Parton, — reading 
as follows : — 

" But unhappily there was a fourth expe- 
dient contemplated, which was fraught with 
peril to the country's peace. It was proposed 
to pass a law devolving the government upon 
the chairman of tlie Senate(to be elected bythe 
Senate), in case the office of President should 
become vacant. At once Jeflerson declared, 
in conversation meant to be reported, that 
S7tch an attempt tronlcl be resisted by force. 
Said Jeflerson: 'Tlie very day that such an Act 
is passed, the Middle States (i. e. Virginia 
and Pennsylvania) ?ri7^ rtr?n. Not for a day 
will such a usurpation be submitted to.' " 
" ' I was decidedly with those,' Jefferson 
explained a few weeks afterwards, ' who 
were determined not to permit it. Because, 
that precedent once set, it would be arti- 
ficially produced, and w^ould soon end in a 
dictator.' " I read from Partou's Life of 
Jeflerson, page 578. 

Elected to be Vice-President in 1792, he di- 
rected his nearest friend, James Madison, to 
prevent any demonstration on Iiis arrival at 
Philadelphia, to take the oath of office. But 
despite all precautions in the direction de- 
sired, the hour of his arrival was ascertained, 
and a salute of 100 guns was fired in his 
honor, beneath a banner which bore this in- 
scription : — " Thomas Jefferson, the friend of 
the people I" 

Called by the people to be President in 1 800, 
he began his career as Chief Executive by 
abolishing all court etiquette, and by declar- 
ing in the most explicit terms that he consid- 
ered himself the servant and not the master 



THE POLITICAL KETROSPECT. 



21 



of the people, and that the policy and practice 
of his administration wonUi he based on that 
theory. He pardoned all persons who were 
then incarcerated under the sedition laws, 
and announced his hostility and his contempt 
towards all legislation bearing the stamp or 
the color of the alien aud sedition enact- 
ments. 

In asking this and that distinguished gen- 
tleman to enter his cabinet, he expressed in 
that calm, modest, sententious manner which 
Was alibis own, a desire to remedy notori- 
ously exibting evils in the administration of 
the affairs of the nation, by a careful and ex- 
clusive attention to the business, until that 
Work should be measurably accomplished ; 
and he deplored all interference with there- 
served rights and prerogatives of the people 
as citize:i8 and sovereigns in separate States. 

Of his Secretary of State, he could say that 
" with consummate powers he united pure and 
spotless virtue." And a comparison between 
that Secretary and an unscrupulous and tricky 
New York lawyer — a defender of adulterous 
ministers, and the advocate of the claims of 
a fraudulent President, who thereafter pro- 
motes him — will be appropriate and inevita- 
ble with such a reading. 

For Secretary of the Treasury, Thomas 
Jetterson appointed Albert Gallatin, a native 
of Switzerland, a learned and practical scien- 
tist and financier. Tiie contrast that will be 
here suggested is between a master in finan- 
ces and a shallow pretender to financial 
scholarship. Looking in another direction in 
the present cabinet, we may say that the con- 
trast will be instituted between a foreign-born 
patriotic gentleman and statesman on the one 
hand, and a foreign-born soldier of fortune 
and political charlatan on the other. Thomas 
Jefferson appointed Albert Gallatin Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, because the latter had 
demonstrated his fitness for the office by his 
speeches and his works. Of the latter it may 
be said that the direct benefits, in one of the 
greatest manufacturing interests of the coun- 
try, remain with us to this day. Albert Gal- 
latin did not in ISOO give original expression 
to the belief that John Adams should be 
elected President of the United States because 
of his demonstrated Htness for the office, and 
then sneakingly seek the shades of Monti- 
cello and make a conditional bargain for his 
campaign-support of Thomas Jefferson. The 
character of these two gentlemen forbids the 
possibility of eutertaiuiug a suspicion of such 
an occurrence. 

Albert Gallatin was a foreign-born fellow- 
citizen and a cabinet minister of whom we 
may be proud. He landed on the shores of 
Massachusetts in 1780, with a thousand dol- 
lars of his own in his pocket— a large stock 
of money for those days. He at once went to 
Machias, in the district of Maine, and enlisted a 
company ot volunteers, and expended his guin- 
eas hi furnishing his troops with indispensable 
supplies. He was elected U.S. Senatorin 171)3; 
but was refused admission by the Senators 
wlio at that time were feeble prototypes of 
the Hipple-Mitchels and A. A. Sargents and 
Jack Spencers and Jim Blaines who now 
exercise a similar autocratic authority with 
reference to certain Democratic Senators 
from the West and the South. Thev made a 
technical point as to the time when"Gallatin 
became a citizen ; and men who had not ex- 
pended a dollar in money, much less sutt'ered 
the loss of a drop of blood for their country, 
during the Revolution, voted out of the count 



for Gallatin's probationary years the period 
when he was literally engaged in battle for 
the freedom of the confederated states ! Sub- 
Bfcf[uently elected to the House of Represent- 
atives, Albert Gallatin exerted himself to the 
utmost in opposition to the alien law ; but 
the Federalist majority, in breach of all gen- 
tlemanly propriety, laughed and coughed, and 
stamped and scraped their feet, until he was 
obliged to retire from the discussion. Thomas 
Jefferson is said to have remembered this 
scene when, two years afterwards, he sent to 
the Senate of the United States the name of 
Albert Gallatin, as his nominee for the office 
of Secretary of the Treasury. Against such a 
nomination, the Sargents and Hippie-Mitch- 
ells and Mortons and Spencers and Wests 
and Blaines — or rather, their distant and im- 
perfectly developed political ancestors — pro- 
tested and hissed in vain. 

The soldier, the scientist, the financier, the 
statesman : such descriptive titles in all their 
comprehensive and glorious significance, be- 
long to Albert Gallatin, the Secretary of the 
Tieasury during the administration of Thom- 
as Jefferson, President of the people, by the 
people's choice : precisely as these terms do 
not belong to John Sherman — apologist for 
ballot-box stuffing and disfranchisement of 
citizens and States, defrauder of the rights of 
the people of this country as expressed in all 
majorities, main supporter of the Returning 
Board fraud at New Orleans, and praising 
champion for Madison Wells, in the Sen- 
ate of the U. S. ; and fitly enough ! (though 
to the infinite disgrace of the Republic) 
" Secretary of the Treasury " for his delicate 
and pious highness from Fremont, Ohio — 
who now cuddles, and sips lollapop, and plays 
Old Maid and Dominoes and Huut-the-Slip- 
per, in the White House, in the city of Wash- 
ington I 

Levi Lincoln was Jefferson's Attorney- 
General. For many years prior to his ap- 
pointment he stood at the head of the Bar in 
Massachusetts. Altogether, he was just that 
sort of a man, in hie professional and his per- 
sonal character, that never would have done 
dishonor to the old Commonwealth by accept- 
ing any such position, or any official station 
whatever, under a Chief Executive whose ti- 
tle to the Presidency was founded on a felo- 
nious taking of other people's property. 

For Secretary of War, Jefferson appointed 
Henry Dearborn, of Maine. In 1775 Henry 
Dearborn was a village doctor in New Hamp- 
shire. The day after the news reached him 
of the battle of Lexington, he was at the 
head of a company of sixty men, on his road 
to Cambridge. He went with Arnold to 
Quebec ; and was noted as among the brav- 
est of that incomparably courageous army, 
who through the borders of starvation, drag- 
ged their bodies to the St. Lawrence, and af- 
ter a short halt for recuperation, made the 
ever-memorable attack on the plains of Abra- 
ham. He was with Washington at York- 
town, and witnessed the surrender of Corn- 
wallis. He was a (juartermaster in the army 
whose accounts — embracing the expenditure 
of $120, (>00 in money — came through a sift- 
ing investigation witliout a cent of ascertain- 
ed deficit. He was twice elected a member 
of the House of Representatives : and one of 
his colleagues, of the opposite party, speaks 
of him as the public, man who was " preemi- 
nently fitted for the post of Secretary of 
War" ; the enumerated list of his q^ualifica- 
tions exhibiting those characteristics and 



22 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



points of ability for which the Belknaps and 
Caraerons imve not been distinguished. 

Robert Smith, of Maryland, was appointed 
Secretary of the Navy. l)y Thomas Jetfersou. 
The President said that he made tliis appoint- 
ment witli a hi^rh appreciation of the fact that 
no man in the country knew more about a 
ship than Robert Smith, of Maryland :— a 
manifested respect for pi'actical knowledge 
adapting him to his department which would 
naturally excite some merriment in the coun- 
cils of Grant and liis fraudulent successor ; 
for Ulysses appointed a Secretary of tlie 
Navy who confessed that be did not know 
the difference between a back-stay and a be- 
laying-pin ; and Rutherford has cliosen for the 
same office a man who is reputed to be fully 
as ignorant respecting the make of a sea- 
going vessel, — whose life has been spent in an 
inland valley, a thousand miles from sea- 
shore, by the side of a creek, wliere a sliip 
was never seen, where a schooner was never 
built, and where for months in every year 
the tad-pole and the Wabash cat-tish divide 
the Iionors of the navigation. 

Gideon Granger, of Connecticut, was ap- 
pointed Post-Master General by Thomas Jef- 
ferson. His familiarity with" the details of 
his otHce were as close and clear as is the ac- 
quaintance of the most tin ro igh man of busi- 
ness with all the particulars of his private 
trade. There were ingenious attempts even 
in those days to rob the treasury through the 
postal department ; but contemporaneous tes- 
timony is given by members of the opposing 
party, that Gideon Granger never allowed a 
contractor to impose upon him by false bid- 
ding or inefficieui service. 

Read the life of Thomas Jefferson. Read 
the history of his administration. I proclaim 
that it will refresh you and stimulate you as 
patriots ; and rising above the contemplation 
of the present, it will make you proud of the 
past and hopeful of the future ot your coun- 
try. It deserves your resolution to study it. 
Young men of El Dorado County. It is the 
history that fits with pungent and searching 
emphasis the present juncture of our national 
affairs. Read it ! Begin as far back, at 
least, as the time when Jefferson compiled his 
manual of parliamentary proceedings; where- 
in these woids stand forth in capital letters : 
" When the private interests of a member are 
concerned in a bill oi- question, he is to 
withdraw." A rule which still remains as 
law in the estimation of gentlemen in the two 
Houses of Congi'ess ; but which has notori- 
ously been abrogated so far as Ben Butler and 
Colfax and Sargent and Jim Blaine and Mor- 
ton are concerned ; and which, it now ap- 
pears by undisputed testimony, never had any 
application to the Representative whom the 
fraudulent President specially desires for his 
"leader" on the floor of Congress — him of 
the hard-shell sect and flabby countenance— 
him of the fancy jieriods and solid bribe- 
money — G irfield, of Ohio. 

Read the biography of Thomas Jefferson ! 
Liberty had a new era. Freedom had a won- 
derful growth during the administration of 
Thomas Jefferson ! And as I speak these 
words, an hundred illustrations come up 
abreast for sketching. Let one be heard 
to-night. 

In former years a man of the highest scien- 
tific attainments, a clergyman of unexcept- 
ionable character, was driven from his parish 
in England by superstitious neighbors. Dur- 
ing his absence from home liis house was set 



on fire, and a vast amount of labor in mathe- 
matical calculations and reviews in physical 
science was brought to nothing by the con- 
flagration. The rabble that surrounded his 
dwelling and applied the torch to its doors, 
threatened the life of this worthy man and 
eminent philosopher. His naineis high on 
the ineffaceable roll of practical scholars and 
beneficent discoverers. In his experiments, 
he had made the discovery of oxygen gas. 
In his independent study of law and human 
rights, he had become a thorough republican, 
in the broad political sense, long before he 
was banished from his native land. I speak 
of Joseph Priestly. Jefferson attended his 
churcli in Philadelphia, so longas the national 
capital was located at that place. Against 
this man, the bitterest sectarian bigotry of 
the country had been directed and concen- 
trated ; and even in this country, in the city 
of brotherly love, he had been subject to insult 
on accout of his religious opinions, and threat- 
ened by numerous anonymous correspond- 
ents with personal violence, if he dared to 
remain and persist in preaching after a given 
day in the same month on which the commu- 
nications were written. Thomas Jefferson 
knew these facts. The first letter that he sent 
from the Presidential mansion, after his in- 
auguration, was one of invitation and enter- 
tainment to Josepli Priestly, of Philadelphia! 
The same spirit was exhibited here that 
was made prominent in all the articles and 
correspondence relating to his beloved Uni- 
versity of Virginia. And in this spirit, with 
all its exemplifications, Thomas Jefferson's 
memory is to be hailed as that of the man 
who is the legitimate father of the Demo- 
cratic party of to-day.* 

*In a note in his autobiography Jefferson says, 
referring to Declaration No. 16 in the V'irginia 
Bill of ItigUts, adopted June 12th, 1776 : "1 pro- 
liosed the demolition of tbe Cliurch establish- 
ment and the freedom nf religion." When that 
declaration was made Jefferson himself was in 
Philadelphia, but he communicated his propo- 
sitions through his friends, Geo. Mason and 
James Madison. He says that " In giving this 
account of the laws and declarations of which I 
myself was the mover and draughtsman, I by 
no means intend to claim to myself the merit of 
obtaining their passage." Then speaking of 
Mason and Madison. 

When the Virginia Bill of Rights was passed, 
every other State in the Union or Confederacy 
had prescriptive religious tests, which were re- 
tained for manj' years thereafter — some of the 
original States holding a portion of these tests 
in their organic law unto this day. Declaration 
No. 16, (sent by Jeft'erson to Madison, and by 
the latter i^rescnted to the Virginia House) reads 
as follows: "That religion, or the duty which 
we owe to our Creator, and the manner of dis- 
charging it, can be directed only by reason and 
conviction, not by force or violence ; and, 
therefore, all men are equally entitled to the 
free exercise of religion, according to the dic- 
tates of conscience ; and that it is the mutual 
duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, 
love and charity toward each other." Dr. John 
W. Kramer, in his ">'ree Church and Free 
American State," says of this: "It is a remarka- 
ble Declaration. Here is the key-note of the sepa- 
ration of Clmrch and State." Having reference, 
also, to the fact that Madison presented Jeffer- 
son's Declaration in the Virginia House of Dele- 
gates, Dr. Kramer says: "Jefferson's Act, adopt- 
ed in 1777, and whicli became the law in 1785, is 
very like a father's fondling of a child, at 
whose birth he was not present." 

George Ticknor Curtis, in his "History of the 
Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Consti- 
tution of the United States," (Vol. II, p. 479) 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



23 



The era of perfect religious toleration iu 
this country bef<au with the administration 
of Thomas Jefferson. Not to Jim Hlaine, of 
Maine, not to Ulysses S. Grant, of Galena, 
do we owe one jot or tittle cf this sentiment, 
so deeply and ineradicably imbedded in the 
breasis oi the American people ; uor do we 
require from the hands of either of these 
male scullions and harridans a constitutional 
barrier against the intrusion of any one reli- 
gious sect upon the rights of all ; for against 
the real spirit of ostracism that is in such a 
party as Blaine and Grant do titly represent, 
religious liberty will be maintained, so long as 
this nation shall remain a Republic, by the 
faithful political children of the Sage of Mon- 
ticello. 

Under Thomas Jefferson a true civil service 
was inaugurated and established. Not a bu- 
reaucracy ; such as is maintained iu tlie monar- 
chies of Europe, and such as the shallow dem- 
agogues in the cabinet of his Fraudulency pro- 
pose to transplant to the Republic of North 
America.* 

says: "'In 1771 * * * the brain of Ji-fferson 
had already evolved religious equality, and Virgin- 
ia's action /urnisfied the restrictions wkicli went 
into the Censlitution of the United States." 

* These frauds in the Cabinet of his Fraudu- 
lency retain all the Grant-gang of thieves in of- 
fice, and appeal to them for instruction in a 
Civil Service Reform Council! The indicated 
rule of Civil Service Reform by the frauds in 
power in Washington is absolutely anti-republi- 
can. On the same i-ule all our subordinate State 
and county officers should hold office for life. 

The variuus organs of the Corruptionists, the 
"Independent" or "Republican" mouth- 
pieces of the Railroad and Telegraph monopo- 
lies, have been fierce, of late years, in their ad- 
vocacy of what they call " Civil Service Re- 
form." It was a good side toiiic to howl over, 
as a relief on an editorial page from monotony 
of pleading directly in behalf of Railroad 
Rights, etc., and, in a general way, served to 
buoy up the pretence of " devotion to the best 
interests of the people." It has been customary 
for these " Republican " and " Independent " 
Railroad organs to refer to the "pernicious doc- 
trine of rotation in office," " first announced 
without qualification by -Jackson." As the 
managers of these organs never read a decent 
book, and as their penny-a-liners dash off their 
copy at a general hurrah without regard to anj' 
text of history, the citizens who are exclusively 
fed from their editorial columns are apt to for- 
get the truth and fall into all sorts of foolish 
error and unjust judgment. Now, at this time, 
when it is sought to fasten a beaurocracy on this 
nation, let me refresh the minds of my readers 
with the words actually used by Old Hickory 
in his original publication of the doctrine that 
" to the victors belongs the spoils." Please 
read : 

" There are perhaps few raen who can for any 
great length of time enjoy office and power, 
without being more or less under the influence 
of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge 
of their public duties. Their integrity may be 
proof against improper considerations imme- 
diately addressed to themselves; but they are 
apt to acquire a habit of looking with indifter- 
ence upon the public interests, and of tolerating 
conduct from which an unpracticed man would 
revolt. Office is considered as a si^ecies of 
property ; and government rather as a means of 
IjromotiDg individual interest, than as an in- 
strument created solely fur the service of the 
people. Corruption iu some, and in others a 
perversion of correct feelings and principles, 
divert government from its legitimate ends, and 
make it an engine for the support of the few at 
the expense of the many. The duties of all 
public officers are, or at least admit of being 
made, bo plain and simple that men of intelli- 



Mostof the newspapers that were published 
in this country iu the year I8O1) were under 
the control of Federalists, and the abuse and 
slander which they poured forth against 
Thomas Jefferson have been frequently refer- 
red to as something reinaikable. And there 
were Independent journals — so called — ia 
those days, edited by the Frank Pi.xley class 
of free lancers ; whose conductors hoped then, 
as their lineal descendants expect now, to ob- 
tain some sort of a sop or subsidy from a new 
administration, by candidly professing a dis- 
interested disregard for ail political principles. 

The question of judgment as to the right 
and wrong of the conduct of the leaders of the 
Radical organization and the lepresentatives 
in the national Legislature, is brought directly 
before the people of California at this time, by 
the announcement that one of the principal 
actors iu the gi and drama of fraud, the second 
act of which closed with the inauguration of 
Hayes, is a candidate for reelection to the U. 
S. Senate. I am glad that the sharpness and 
seriousness of our inquiry is enhanced by the 
fact, that this man, who was elected to the 
Senate by the Central Pacitic Railroad Com- 
pany, after obtaining a suspension of criticism 

gence may rapidly qualify themselves for their 
performance; and I cannot but believe that more 
is lost by the long continuance of uien in office 
than is generally to be gained by their expe- 
rience. I submit, therefore, to your considera- 
tion, whether the efficiency of the government 
would not be promoted, and official industry 
and integrity better secured by a general exten- 
sion of the law which limits appointment to 
four years. 

In a country where offices are created solely 
for the benefit of the people, no man has any 
more intrinsic right to official station than an- 
other. Offices were not established to give sup- 
port to particular men at the public expense. 
No individual wrong is, therefore, done by re- 
moval, since neither appointment to nor contin- 
uance in office is matter of right. The incum- 
bent became an officer with a view to the public 
benefits ; and when these require his removal 
they are not to be sacrificed to private interests. 
It is the people, and they alone, who have a 
right to complain, when a bad officer is substitu- 
ted for a good one. He who is removed has the 
same means of obtaining a living that are em- 
ployed by the millions who never held office. 
The proposed limitation would destroy the idea 
of property now so generally connected with 
official station ; and although individual dis- 
tress may be sometimes i)roduced, it would, by 
promoting that rotation which constitutes a 
leading principle in tlie republican creed, give 
healthful action to the system." — [From Presi- 
dent Jadcson's First Annual Message to Con- 
gress.] 

Now John Sherman & Co. appeal to the big 
thieves iu office as to how they shall be.st intro- 
duce Civil Service Reform. Now John Sherman 
& Co., under the stress of economy laid upon 
them by a Democratic Congress, turn out the 
men and women who have occupied the little 
clerical berths of the Government at Washing- 
ton — the very class that should least " suffer " 
from the principle of Rotation in office — and re- 
tain the experienced thieves in large-salaried 
and equally supernumary offices. And in some 
instances workmen are turned out from service 
at the capital — with a shriek of '• Reform " and 
•' Economy "—and fat cdntracts immediately 
thereafter given to New York and Philadelphia 
firms of banknote engravers. 

The proclamation to theeflect that Civil Service 
Reform has begun with the Order of Retention in 
office in behalf of the principal Grant Pluuderera 
of 1869-77, is a most remarkable document! As 
Parke Godwin prophetically termed it, it is " in- 
demnity for all the felons and rogues who infest 
and pollute the public offices." 



24 



THE POLITICAL RETKOSPECT. 



by declaring his " unalterable purpose " not 
to aspire for a re-election, has exercised his 
privile^'e of reversing his own decree of re- 
tirement. As the general issue is uuuiislake- 
abie, explicit and imperative, so the particular 
contest with us touching individuals is novf 
immediate, direct and vital. 

If the ])eople of the State of California are 
again "represented" in the upper House of 
Congress by A. A. Sargent, it will be said that 
a niiijority of our citizens fully and to the last 
letter of action and intention, endorse the va- 
rious movements that culminated in the inau- 
guration of the usurper. And I say again, in 
this connection, that although we may plead 
that the monopolies, with all tlieir methods 
Btrained to the uttermost, have succeeded in 
producing a result which does not correctly 
represent the sentiment of this people or the 
will of a large majority of tlie citizens of Cali- 
fornia, yet amid the din and racket that will 
be created by the Conspirators in the event 
which you understand me to deprecate, this 
palliation, this excuse, will not avail for the 
vindication of this commonwealth. 

Fellow-citizens : as we love our country, as 
We respect ourselves, as we hope for a politi- 
cal redemption from the senatorial rule of the 
very worst class of men that have ever de- 
bauched our supreme legislative council, we 
must begin now to do the work of unrelenting 
and aggressive vigilance against a party that 
would again place A. A. Sargent in the U. S. 
senatorial chair. 

Do not misapprehend me. I care very lit- 
tle about the man and his personal success, 
compared with the moral effect of his leturn 
to the U. S. Senate by our legislative conven- 
tion. I know the man well. He is not a 
bold, bad man, like Oliver P. Morton. He is 
a timid, sniffling creature, with considerable 
facility for chattering. Very serviceable, on 
occasions, — to be putin the front row for thin, 
diffusive, multitudinous speech, — as a relief, 
perchance, against the sledge-hammer assaults 
upon every principle of justice and right by 
the far more adroit as well as more ponderous 
champions of the Eadical cause. He is "in- 
dustrious and persistent"; very good qual- 
ities in a public man : but these qualities are 
dedicated to the service of the various monop- 
olies that surge around and within the Capi- 
tol at Washington. 

Do this people desire to send any more 
tools of the railroad organization to the Sen- 
ate of the U. S. ? Industrious and persistent 
that organization and this man will he, to 
gather and utilize strength in our Legislature 
sufficient for his re-election. 

Here is the place to talk about these mat- 
ters with perfect freedom and genuine candor. 
Here, in your Jeff'ersonian clubs, all the facts 
in the premises should be made known; — there 
should be no concealment nor qualitication in 
the statements of the pertinent truth. Not in 
secret conclaves, but in the meetings where 
every man who professes to be a Democrat is 
welcome, the popular investigation should 
commence and go on. And the ultimate ven- 
tilation of the political and personal facts at- 
tached to each case of legitimate inquiry 
should continue to be thorough and complete ; 
until the proposition to re-elect such a man as 
A. A. Sargent to the U. S. Senate, from the 
State of California, becomes a simple sugges- 
tion for contemptuous comment and dismissal 
by every honest and intelligent citizen in this 
county. For it cannot be possible — it is not 
within the bounds of ordinary human credu- 



lity, to suppose a different conclusion : — that 
the voters of the State, who are truly interest- 
ed in recovering her good name, in the pro- 
tection and development of her best interests, 
and above all things wisely careful in endeav- 
oring to guard the liberties and the honor of 
the people, will consent, after due ascertain- 
ment and examination of the facts, to the tre- 
mendous success of the Presidency-conspira- 
tors and the monopolists which would be 
attained in the re-election to the U. S. Senate 
of this sputtering implement of the organized 
and allied national lobby forces at the city of 
Washington. 

I do not doubt that when A . A. Sargent was 
first sent as a Representative to Congress he 
tried to do his duty to his constituents and the 
country at large, to the extent of his limited 
ability, — unfettered as he was by any monop- 
oly olditfations. But is there one among you 
so uninformed as to the proceedings at Sac- 
ramento in the Winter of 1872, as not to be 
apprised of the conditions on which the elec- 
tion of A. A. Sargent to the U. S. Senate was 
obtained by the. agents of the Central Pa- 
cific Eailroad Company ? Have you never 
heard of the bargains that were made for him 
with this and that legislator: the consideration 
being : on the one hand, a vote for Sargent, 
and on the other, an official berth in the 
Custom House, or in the U. S. Mint, or in the 
Land Office, or on the U. S. building works, 
or in the Mare Island navy yard ? Have you 
never heard of the piles of gold that were 
laid by some friendly hands on a table in an 
ante-room at the Orleans Hotel, from which 
admitted members of the Legislature were 
at liberty to take such sums as seemed to 
them reasonable for their — well, for their re- 
imbursement or their recreation ? Is this 
kind of electioneering to be continued in this 
State, and the outcome of it to be, year 
after year, the choosing of this class of per- 
sons to be Senatorial rulers over the land ? 

In the closing days of the Forty-second 
Congress, the question as to the peculiar ap- 
pliances by which the last Pacific Mail sub- 
sidy was aided through Congress was 
brought up before the Senate of the United 
States. Mr. Sargent took the floor, and re- 
pudiated and ridiculed the idea that money 
had been used for the purpose named by the 
Steamship Company or any of its agents. 
The great commercial interests of theEepub- 
lic called for the appropriation ; the trade of 
the civilized world, the progress of art and 
science, the amity of nations, the general 
enlightenment of mankind, demanded this 
subsidy for the Trans-Pacific Mail Company ! 
And whatever might be the special or nat- 
ural basis for the suspicion of a moneyed 
lobby, with respect to other matters of legis- 
lation, here — in regard to the Pacific Mail 
Company — any intimation that money had 
been used to buy or influence the votes of 
members of either House, was in the ex- 
treme preposterous and absurd. Mr. Adolph 
Sutro informed me of this remarkable speech, 
and I believe he was present at its delivery. 

Within two years after this utterance, a 
Committee of the Lower House of Congress 
ascertained and disclosed some of the details 
of the "job," whereby or wherein scores of 
members of the House of Eepresentatives 
and several " distinguished members " of the 
Upper Chamber — and some of the oldest cor- 
respondents of the " Independent Press " — 
had been liberally supplied with pocket 
"change" by accredited disbursers for the 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



25 



subsidized corporation.* Eigliteen thousand 
dollars were traced directly to tlie purse of 
one Radical Senator from the Pacific coast ; 
and the investigatinjj: proceedings were be- 
coming most uncomfortably warm for many 
members, the extent of whose private salary 
from this source was not developed because 
the investigation, or the forced pretence or 
dabble of an investigation, was brought to a 
singularly abrupt conclusion. 

I visited Mr. Irwin, the principal manager 
in this Congressional subsidy business, atliis 
temporary head-quarters in "the District Jail 
at Wasliiugton, when the investigation, so 
called, to which I refer, was in progress. I 
asked him how it was possible that so much 
money conld have been expended in the 
manner alleged by the "New York World"t 
and other DemoL-ratic papers, to carry the 
Pacific Mail subsidy bill through the two 
Houses, when it appeared that our most in- 
dustrious Senator neither knew nor believed 
nor suspected that any improper means were 
being used in the premises, 1 remember Mr. 
Irwin's reply perfectly, and I think I can 
give it verbatim. He' said: "The truth is, 
it was as notorious that money was being 
paid out for this purpose, as the shining of 
the noon-day sun in clear weather." And 
yet, the Hon. A. A. Sargent improved one of 
the last days of a preceding session, to de- 
clare in the" Senate of the United States that 
the accusation referred to was false in fact, 
and against all the probabilities of the situa- 
tion. 

Now, are you going to send a man back to 
the U. S. Senate, who exhibits that kind of 
strange and helpful innocence respecting the 
unconcealed activity and manipulation of the 
Washington lobby ? For you must observe 
that this guileless condition, on the part of 
our industrious and persistent Senator, fitted 
him — all unwittingly — to rise in the U. S. 
Senate and make just that kind of a speech at 
that particular juncture, which was calculated 
to be of the very greatest service to the 
treasury -plundering scoundrels, who did 
stand without and within — the avowed 
representatives of the Coolie-bringing Pacific 
Mail Steamship Company.]: Do you want to 
send such a man back to the U. S, Senate 
from the State of California ? If not, be ye 
up and about your political duty. Let not a 



* Perhaps I should have said that the Radical 
majority in the House had forced upon it a 
knowledge of the fact that the general public 
had become duly apprised of the scandalous 
use of money in bribing Senators and Congress- 
men, in furtherance of the Pacific Mail Steam- 
ship subsidy scheme, and on this account was 
compelled to make a show of investigation. 

tThe " Xew York Weekly World," price $1 a 
year, including postage, should be regularly 
received by every Democratic household on 
this coast. It is now an excellent newspaper in 
every sense of the word, and a marvel of cheap- 
ness. 

t Having been in the National Legislature for 
a greater portion of the time since 1861, Sar- 
gent, in IS" (5, suddenly developed into a profuse 
anti-coolie-importatiou talker. Just note the 
sincerity of such nitu, as illustrated by aiding 
a coolie-bringing steamship company to the 
last dollar that can be raked from the U. S. 
Treasury, without a word of conditional provision 
inihe subsidy bill, guarding against the flooding of 
the country with Asiatic slaves, and then turning 
about and seeking to mount a rising wave of 
public sentiment in hostility to " Chmese immi- 
gration." 



neighbor escape your honorable and respect- 
ful solicitation as patriots and as honest men. 
Let it not be within the bounds of possibility 
that, with an unimpeachable legislative ticket 
in your county, nominated by tlie Democratic 
party, one single voter of decent reputation 
can unblusliiugiy go to the polls with a vote 
for the Sargent nominations in his hand, in- 
tending to cast that vote as his political sup- 
port, in the autumn season of the 102d year 
of the Independence of the United States of 
America. 

How long, let me ask you, is this people to 
submit to the grossest of shams and duplici- 
ties ? Are we fools and mad. and without a 
living standard of self-respecting judgment ? 
Did not Aaron A. Sargent, two years ago, 
attend the Republican convention at Sacra- 
mento, and simulating a terrible new-born 
zeal against the Central Pacific Railroad mo- 
nopoly, blow his chatfdust resolutions of ar- 
raignment and denunciation and anti-monop- 
oly-covenanting in every eye ? And after 
the canvass was over, did he not return to 
Washington and resume his station at the 
Capitol without uttering one syllable of cor- 
responding and promised protestor statement 
or exhortation ? Is there recorded a word of 
stout challenge or a lisp of distinct articula- 
tion from Aaron A. Sargent, since that cam- 
paign was closed, to suggest a practical ful- 
fillment of any of the anti-monopoly pledges 
which were by him or for him put on dress 
parade before the people of this common- 
wealth in the Summer of 1875 ? Amid the 
abounding opportunities for the beginning or 
the promotion of a work of emancipation 
from the pecuniary extortions and the politi- 
cal intimidations by the Central Pacific Rail- 
road corporation,* has there been a moment 
improved by Aaron A. Sargent, since the 
month of September, 1875 ? Did he even 



* Talk of intimidations in the South ? In 
Oakland and Sacramento, last fall, the foremen 
of the railroad shops posted up notices of Rad- 
ical meetings and processions, and informed 
workmen that they were expected to attend. 
And on election day, the laborers were supplied 
with tickets by Radical club managers, and 
" spotted " up to the polls. JIany men from 
the railroad shops, who had joined the Demo- 
cratic club in Sacramento, came to the officers 
of that organization and confessed, with tears 
of shame, that they would have to vote the 
Radical ticket or be deprived of their positions 
in the R. R. Co.'s employ. Some of these men 
had large families, and had invested money m 
part payments for a homestead in Sacramento, 
and were otherwise so tied up as to be literally 
" under the thumb " of the monopolists. 

In speaking of the extortions of the railroad 
and telegraph monopolies, you are often met by 
the statement of the lawyers for these compa- 
nies, to the efi'ect that the corporations have an 
abstract right to charge just what they please. 
That is just what they have not. These corpo- 
rators did not discover the motive power of 
steam, or the message-bearing uses of electric- 
ity I Yet, to hear them talk, you would logic- 
ally infer that they had a i^atent on these dis. 
coveries and inventions. Besides, the law of 
incorporation, for common carriers, is founded 
on the idea that the charges shall be reasonable. 
Besides, in the case of the Central Pacific and 
Union Pacific R. R. Co.'s, the construction of 
their road did not cost the incorporators and 
builders a ten-cent piece out of their own pockets. 
On the contrary, they stole large margins from 
the people's donation for the work. And, as I 
have said elsewhere, the Western Union Tel. 
Co.'s overland line, from Sacramento to Oma- 
ha, was paid for in cost subsidies. 



26 



THE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



vouchsafe one word of sincere testimony or 
argument at tlie time when Newton Booth 
deemed it politic and advantaijeous — to liim- 
self— to let oH in the U. S. Senate chamber 
his prescribed amount of rhetorical fire-works, 
and set out on the record table his fly-catch- 
ipK platter of verbal confectionery, with each 
tireless spark and each plaster -"paris crumb 
labelled " anti-railroad monopoly" ! Has not 
Aaron A. Sargent returned to this State, and 
in comijany with Newton Booth made tiie 
rounds of the stumping places of this com- 
monwealth, in suppoit of a Presidential can- 
didate who was the (choice and is the creature 
of the combined and tyrannizing monopolies 
of the land ? Will you send such a man back 
to the U. S. Senate ? What are you thinking 
about ? Are you thinking at all ? I beg 
your pardon. I intend to speak to you with 
the utmost respect. But I would like to have 
you feel this question in every artery and 
vein of your body.* 

Have you not heard, even here, way up the 
mountain side, in the city of Placerville, the 
faint but clear echoes of the " disillusionizing 
horse laughs " of the Stanfords and Crockers 
and Huntingtons, — bursting forth over their 
champagne glasses in one of their convivial 
dining halls, on one of the hills that tower in 
the midst of our metropolis, at the conclusion 

* Very likely, Sargent's bosses may deem it 
expedient to set forth, this year, (1877) another 
anti-railroad monopoly platform for the Radical 
party. 

The monopolies have a fashion of heading off 
sincere efforts in favor of any beneficent legis- 
lation, by directing one of their creatures in a 
Legislature to introduce a bill, professedly de- 
signed to carry out a particular matter of re- 
form, or a particular plan for conducting the 
business of the Government in a more expedi- 
tious, or convenient, or economical manner. Take 
the illustration of A Postal Telegraph. Sar- 
gent introduces A Postal Telegraph Bill ! Teii 
years after the subject is first agitated in Congress. 
Of course, that wards oft", for a session at least, 
the introduction of appropriate law on the sub- 
ject by any other Senator. Of course, that bill 
has slept sweetly during the past Congress. Of 
course, if deemed expedient, it will be re-intro- 
duced by the same person at the next session, 
and some show made of a plea in its behalf. 
More time for monopoly rule, even if an ulti- 
mate and not far distant victory for the advo- 
cates of A Postal Telegraph is sure to be. 
And, of course, when the day of great and 
irresistable popular demand for A Postal Tele- 
graph shall come, there will be Sargent in the 
door, shouting: "I was always in favor of it, 
I was always in favor of it, I-I-I I was always 
in favor of it!" And then there will be, perhaps, 
a claim of precedence, from an " original, pio- 
neer friend of the plan," for his little bill, 
•which may be so worded as to hide in its sec- 
tions a provision for paying the Western Union 
Telegraph Company — ivhich has fraudulently 
watered its stoch not less than $80,000,000 — an 
enormous price for its old wires and rotten 
poles and cracked jars and antiquated cups and 
macerated plates? Can't the people, and all 
the people, be brought to see these opera- 
tions and read these motives as ihey really are ; 
and thereby be provoked to kick these Congres- 
eional cheats into a merited retirement? 

Congressman Luttrell not only introduced 
measures in favor of a postal telegraph, in our 
own Legislature and in Congress— six and three 
years before Sargent was put forward with his 
Dummy bill— but worked dilligeutly for their 
passage. He urged a Congressional Committee, 
before which I testified, to report in favor of a 
bill that would forbid the monopoly in news- 
paper despatches. He is a sincere man, and a 
faithful Representative for the people. 



of one of Billy Carr's descriptions of " that 
da-a-avlish good anti-railroad monopolv stuf- 
fing campaign we gave the damn fools" — 
meaning thereby the Radical campaign of 
1875, and the people of the State of Cali- 
fornia ! 

Have you not men in El Dorado County 
whom you can elect to sit in the legislature at 
Sacramento next winter, whose discrimina- 
tion as to the right and wrong is distinct and 
lively, and on whose intelligent devotion to 
the true interests of the whole people you can 
place a perfect reliance : whom no money of 
the monopolists can buy, no blandishments of 
the Conspirators against the People's rights 
can seduce ? I beseech you, as a fellow citi- 
zen : look to it ! I assume no airs of dicta- 
tion. I plead with one and all for a cease- 
less participation in political affairs from this 
moment until the sun goes down on election 
day : an earnest, faithful dedication of your 
leisure from strictly private business affairs, 
that you may secure good men and true for 
your Representatives and Senator-electing 
agents at Sacramento. The County of El 
Dorado was wont to send a delegation of su- 
perior men to the Legislature of your State. 
I remember it well, and with great and un- 
qualified satisfaction. Will El Dorado Coun- 
ty, having a thoroughly disciplined Demo- 
cratic party in 1877, fail to send Senators and 
Assemblymen to the approaching Legisla- 
ture, who, under no consideration that can 
be conceived, will vote for that squeaking, 
squalling pet and polecat of the monopolists 
and national Conspirators — Aaron A. Sar- 
gent? 

I read but yesterday in an Independent 
newspaper in the city of San Francisco — in 
one of the twin journals that exclusively own 
that title in our metropolis* — that, on the 
ground of " courteous demeanor," A. A. 
Sargent compares in flattering precedence 
with his associates on the floor of the United 
States Senate. And in the same rose-water 
sheet an indictment was brought forth against 
political speakers on the score of alleged 
coarseness and vulgarity. Let us take this 
up for a moment — this eulogy of the " indus- 
trious-and-persistent " (and' his industry is 
greatly magnified) — with a legitimate and 
logical reference to this very matter of his 
candidacy. And it is not a point of mere per- 
sonality, but a matter of popular, of State, 
and, if you please, of national concern. 

Very recently, when didappering and chit- 
chit-chit-chittering from a spot between the 
front rows of the horse-shoe of seats that 
sweep around the President of the Senate — 
in a speech that was spread broadcast before 
the country, by the lightning of the morning, 
as a "remarkably thrilling, impromptu burst 
of impassioned eloquence" — (said also to be 
pertinent to tiie question before the Senate !) 
— Aaron A. Sargent declared that the Demo- 
cratic party "assassinated Abraham Lincoln, 
one of the best men God Almighty ever 
made." With this important" historical " ad- 
dition : "The fact of this assassination of Abra- 
ham Lincoln by the Democratic party is as 
notorious and undeniable as the fact that the 
Jews assassinated Christ." And the principal 

* The Chronicle and Alia do not properly come 
imder the head of " The Independent Press." 
Every body knows where they are, so long as the 
Radical party is in power. But the Bulletin and 
Call deceive and delude thousands of our best 
citizens with their professions of impartiality in 
politics, etc. 



TUE POLITICAL RETROSPECT. 



27 



representative paper of t!ie " Independent 
Press" at San Francisco approvingly headed 
a comtnnnication from John W. Dwinelle, 
in -which this declamation was said to liave 
been in u;ood taste, and the historical allusion 
— to which some Israelites in San Francisco 
took pnblic exception — was said to be entirely 
correct. 

This declamation was blasphemou? toward 
God, and insulting toward man. But in it, 
and by its utterance, I think yon have an 
image of the pei'son who is its author. Let us 
look at it a little. 

According to all history, sacred and pro- 
fane, direct and traditional, the Jews did not 
" assassinate" Christ. But the chief priests 
in Jerusalem — the Oliver P. Morions, and 
Zach. Chandlers, and Jay Goulds of that day 
and nation and race, who had somehow stolen 
their way into the high places of the temple — 
after many failures in tlieir eflbrts to get the 
common people to do the work and tal\e the 
responsibility of assassinating Christ — the in- 
ducements or the actual attempt, always fail- 
ing, for one reason or another^did procure 
the crucifixion of Christ ; the actu;il work of 
execution being performed by the Roman sol- 
diery. The statement that it was not an 
"assassination" is readily substantiated by 
<juotations from numerous theological scholars 
of the highest rank, who, in commenting upon 
the peculiar method of execution, have seen 
fit to incidentally, but specifically, distinguish 
it from assassination. As they declare, that 
" assassination " was often attempted, and as 
often thwarted; "Christ being reserved un- 
der the awful decree of Heaven for crucifix- 
ion at the hands of the Roman soldiery." A 
judicial murder is not assassination ; and the 
sentence, "the Jews assassinated Christ" is 
very unusual, to say the least, and has never 
before been emploj-ed in a public speech by a 
United States Senator or a Representative in 
Congress who claimed to be anything of a 
scholar or something of a gentleman. 

But, ^' the Democratic party assassinated 
Abraham Lincoln." I believe that there were 
not stronger Union men during the war than 
Secretary Seward and Secretary Stanton. 
Certainly, they were bosom friends of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and loved him as their own 
brother. And on account of the attempted 
murder of the former, near the same hour 
when President Lincoln was killed, there is 
enhanced and irresistible strength for his 
opinion in regard to this matter. Secretary 
Seward had occasion, in a letter written to a 
friend in New York, not long after the death 
of President Lincoln, to say, in substance, 
that it was a piece of the greatest folly to try 
and convict the Democratic party, or the 
leaders of the late msurrection, of any moral 
complicity in the murder of Lincoln. And 
Secretary Stanton, in conversations which I 
have seen reported, gave expression to the 
same views. Senators Fessenden and Trum- 
bull expressed it as their opinion that Wilkes 
Booth was insane, and that the murder of 
Lincoln was the dreadful deed of a madman. 
An officer of the Union army — now the pres- 
ident of one of the principal banking institu- 
tions in San Francisco— who was present in 
Washington, at the time of the assassination, 
or shortly thereafter, and who was made very 
well acquainted with the proceedings l)efore 
the tribunal which ordered the execution of 
some of the alleged confederates of the assas- 
sin — has repeatedly told me that, in his opin- 
ion, and in the opinion of Senator James A. 



MoDougal, there was no conspiracy whatever 
for the actual assassination ; that the intimate 
male and female associates of Wilkes Booth 
who were hanged, contemplated and proposed 
nothing more and notliing worse than the 
kidnapping of the President. 

Robert E. Lee exclaimed, when he heard 
of the death of President Lincoln : " I fear 
we have lost our best friend." And that sen- 
timent was loudly echoed throughout the 
South by leading officers of the Confederate 
army, and leading civilians, late of the Con- 
federate councils; from the Vice-President of 
the so-called Confederacy, Alexander H. Ste- 
phens, down, way, way down to General 
Longstreet. 

In fact, as yon must remember, when this 
kind of taunt was uttered by some weak fel- 
lows on the stumj!, in 1866, it was promptly 
met by every sensible Union party statesman 
and journalist in terms of contemptuous re- 
buke. And so it died out of the mouths of 
the various fools in the Union party ranks 
who mounted the rostrum in the campaigns 
that fallowed immediately after the inaugu- 
ration of President Johnson. And during all 
the " bloody shirt '" exposition that was held 
by the Radicals in the Summer and Fall of 
1876, we neither heard nor read the stupid 
suggestion and the infamous slander which 
is embodied in the sentence we have quoted. 

No! It was left for Aaron A. Sargent to 
get up in the U. S. Senate, at the very time 
when, on all accounts, he should not have 
made such statement, though it set forth the 
truth — -even if tiiere had been a shadow of 
reason or probability for such an accusation — 
and make his " flaming peroration " in this 
yelping slang of the gutter. There spoke 
Aaron A. Sargent ! Will you send him back 
to the U. S. Senate ? He made this utter- 
ance when the most impulsive nature should 
have been restrained from giving vent on that 
side of the Senate to any languaije of vituper- 
ation or scorn. The gentlemanly instincts of 
a statesman and a soldier — supposing the elec- 
tion of Rutherford B. Hayes to have been 
justly ascertained — would then have been ex- 
emplified by a speech that was balm for hurt 
minds and oil upon the troubled waters. But 
no ; Aaron A. Sargent comes back to you 
seeking a re election to the U. S. Senate, with 
these words for his last Senatorial valedictory 
and for his home salutation : " The Democracy 
assassinated the best man God Almighty ever 
made,— Abraham Lincoln ; and the fact that 
they did this is as notorious as the fact that 
the Jews assassinated Christ." 

Do you know what this meant, if it is to 
have any construction or any further consid- 
eration ? It meant, and was intended to 
mean, that you and I, being in the Democrat- 
ic party today, are morally responsible, by 
the doctrine of relation at least, for the mur- 
der of Abraham Lincoln ! It means that you, 
men from the South, were direct, spiiitual 
participants in the commission of that bloody 
deed ; and it means that we, men of the North, 
have become politically affiliated with you in 
the full understanding that you were acces- 
sories and accomplices in the assassination of 
Abraliam Lincoln ; and that therefore we also 
are stained with the guillof the horrid crime! 

I was in Virginia City, Nevada, on the day 
when funeral orations were delivered in mem- 
ory of Abraham Lincoln. And I know that 
every prominent Democrat there, with Gen. 
Thomas H. Williams at their head, marched 
in the procession and participated in the serr- 



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A Tpin fn PinohP Nevada; — being a sketch of recent travel. 

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" Short-Hand and Reporting " is a valuable historical record, containing much infor- 
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Mr. Sumner's unusual ability as a lecturer, his great power of seizing upon note-worthy 
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